CHANGE: It’s Official: France Cut To AA+ From AAA By S&P, Outlook Negative.

Related: Everyone Hates The Euro – EUR Shorts Hit New Record High.

UPDATE: More: S&P Cuts Credit Ratings for Nine Euro Zone Nations. “S&P lowered its long-term rating on Cyprus, Italy, Portugal and Spain by two notches, and cut its rating on Austria, France, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia by one notch.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: New App Downlinks Mars Rover Images Straight to Your Smartphone.

TALKING TO FROMA HARROP ABOUT CIVIL DISCOURSE:

LIFE AMONG THE BARBARIANS (CONT’D): Massachusetts Crime Victim Fights The Law.

Instead of thanking McKay for helping get an armed criminal off the streets, Swampscott officials charged him with a felony. As a Swampscott police spokesman said at the time, “We don’t urge anybody to fight back. We want them to call us.”

Thanks to pressure from readers of the Boston Herald and others, McKay will not be prosecuted. But the Essex County District Attorney’s office has made it clear that they are not supporting your right to self defense. . . . McKay’s pro bono attorney, Richard Chambers, was told the same thing. “The Essex DA’s office said they are able to prosecute some cases and not others, and this is one of those that they are not going to prosecute.”

In other words, McKay is lucky that the media made an issue out of this outrageous prosecution. Otherwise he could have spent five years in prison instead of working and paying the bills for his three young children.

It seems to me that Essex County D.A. Jonathan Blodgett needs to catch up with modernity. The backward era in which self-defense was looked down upon as somehow barbaric is long since past in the more enlightened parts of the country.

WHY THE GLOCK BECAME America’s Handgun. “Rather than six rounds, the Glock has 17 rounds in the magazine. Instead of a 12-pound trigger pull, like the traditional revolver, it has a trigger pull of slightly more than 5 pounds. That means that someone who is a mediocre shooter or a bad shooter—as many police officers who don’t practice often enough are—will suddenly become more accurate and be more effective.”

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Where Are All The Sensitive Men Hiding?

LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE: How Will Law Schools Respond To The Central Question Of Our Time.

INTERNET ADDICTION linked to brain abnormalities.

FOR NEXT WEEK’S INSTAVISION, I just finished interviewing Mark Levin about his new book. You’ll like it.

DANA LOESCH: Correcting the Progressive Spin on My Defense of the Marines. “The disproportionate anger on the part of progressives is fueled by their dislike of our military. That what this proves.”

When they can’t criticize you without misrepresenting what you said, you know you’re winning.

DYNAMISM: Chair of Science Committee Is Oldest Member Of Congress.

CHRIS MOONEY, CALL YOUR OFFICE: When Bureaucrats Stymie Science: The CDC’s policy on the meningococcal vaccine wastes taxpayer dollars and threatens public health. “Government bureaucrats usually hold others to strict standards, rules, and prescribed procedures. This administration, in particular, has repeatedly promised to set a high bar for honesty and transparency. How ironic, then, that this ‘public’ process has been so murky and problematic.”

ED DRISCOLL ON Hollywood Racism.

HOW’S THAT JOB CREATION WORKIN’ FOR YA? Most of Apple’s $82 billion cash stockpile is ‘trapped’ overseas.

Apple may have enough cash on hand to make Scrooge McDuck’s money vault look like a kiddie pool by comparison, but according to SeekingAlpha, most of that cash is effectively trapped overseas. US$54 billion of Apple’s overall $82 billion in cash is in offshore accounts, and Apple cannot repatriate that money to the States unless it wants to pay a huge 35 percent corporate tax on it.

If Apple attempted to bring that money into the States, right off the bat through the magic of taxes that $54 billion would transform into $35.1 billion, with the other $18.9 billion disappearing down the federal money hole. With that much cash at stake, it’s no wonder that Apple hasn’t been in any hurry to repatriate its huge foreign cash reserves.

Which means they’re not available to create jobs.

HEADSTART: A 50-Year Flop?

THE ONE PERCENT: Elizabeth Warren’s Donors.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Jonathan Turley: 10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free.

Related: America Again Drops in Global Ranking of Economic Freedom.

ANNALS OF THE 1%: “Beyoncé’s Birthing Suite Is Nicer Than My Apartment.” Okay, make that the .001%.

THE NEW YORK POST EDITORIALIZES ON PISSGATE:

For our part, we’re withholding judgment. There have been too many such seemingly shocking episodes that, upon investigation, turn out to be less than that.

The high-profile case of Marine Lt. Ilario Pantano — accused of murdering Iraqis, but exonerated late last year — certainly illustrates the point. But maybe they did do it. Marine Corps Commandant James Amos says he’ll get to the bottom of it all.

Still, as wartime atrocities go, this is pretty mild stuff. My Lai, for sure, it ain’t.

And, again, the Taliban sure ain’t — excuse the metaphor — choirboys.

Maybe somebody should ask Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl about it.

Oh, wait: The Islamists beheaded him — on videotape.

Perspective, folks. Perspective.

Indeed.

JOHN GALT WAS UNAVAILABLE FOR COMMENT: Nearly 1 Million Workers Vanished Under Obama.

UPDATE: Reader Matthew Tanner writes:

And to think I almost didn’t click through: That “1 million workers vanish” is one of the most astonishing things I hope to see this year, particularly the bar graph comparing this “recovery” with all others in recent decades. Everyone should see that graph, and Mitt Romney ought to carry a copy in his pocket for frequent display.

And by the way, I’m not sure many of the missing have “gone Galt.” (I wish.) More likely they’ve given up all hope, and are not leading very fulfilling lives.

Sadly, that’s probably right. And here’s the graphic, though you should still click through and read the whole thing.

I would suggest that perhaps the reason why this recovery isn’t like the last 9 recoveries is that it’s not a recovery at all. It’s a leaky tire into which Obama and the Fed have been pumping air, in the form of vast amounts of poorly-founded debt.

WHY ECONOMIC PLANNING ISN’T SO HOT: Fed’s image tarnished by newly released documents. “On Thursday, the Fed released transcripts of its meetings in 2006, offering a new window into what was on the minds of some of the nation’s top economic and financial thinkers just ahead of the financial crisis and subsequent great recession. The transcripts, which are customarily released after five years, show that Fed leaders, armed with the best economic data available, had little idea of what was looming less than two years off.”

SOME OF US ARE PRETTY USED TO THIS: The left blogosphere freaks out over its own inability to distinguish between hard to believe and falsifiable.

JONATHAN TOBIN: Killing Iranian Scientists is Not Terrorism. So all of you lefty bloggers who have been calling Barack Obama a terrorist and a war criminal and calling for his arrest can just shut up now. . . .

#GREENFAIL: California High-Speed Rail Derails: CEO Quits In Long-Expected Surprise.