INSTAVISION: My interview with Jack McCall about his new book, Pacific Time on Target: Memoirs of a Marine Artillery Officer, 1943-1945, is now available on YouTube. Bill Whittle makes an appearance, too.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Fracking Foe Fears Prove Foolish… Again.

THE HILL: ‘You didn’t build that’ remarks won’t change Obama’s strategy. Good.

Meanwhile, Reader Curtis McGirt writes:

I think it’s time to resurrect the Heinlein quote just for a little perspective here:

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as “bad luck.”

Yes, it was clear from the beginning that the Obama Administration would be full of this kind of bad luck, and they have not failed to deliver.

DESCENDING INTO SELF-PARODY: Citing UN Veg Arguments, USDA Encourages ‘Meatless Mondays’ for Employees.

EVEN A FLATWORM LEARNS TO AVOID PAINFUL STIMULI: Roll Call: Harry Reid, White House Shy From Gun Control Debate.

GAY-HATRED’S OKAY IF IT’S DIVERSE GAY-HATRED: Boston Mayor was at ribbon cutting for city-subsidized mosque that teaches “death to gays.”

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Senate Democrats To Small Business: Drop Dead. Hey, it’s not like you built that business yourself or anything.

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BRIDGET JOHNSON: Is Ken Salazar The New Eric Holder? “Charges of cover-ups, data manipulation, and junk science; noncompliance with congressional requests and mandates; putting a chokehold on energy: Interior scandals stack up.”

BUSTING THE JOURNOLIST LINE ON GUNS: Howard Nemerov Fact-Checks Ezra Klein.

EUGENE VOLOKH: Chicago Alderman: I Will Deny Business Permit Because ‘There Are Consequences for [Its Owner’s] Statements and Beliefs,’ and They Should Include Denial. “This is just appalling.” Well, it’s Chicago.

The Alderman should be glad the owners of Chick-Fil-A are forgiving Christian types. If I owned Chick-Fil-A, I’d file a lawsuit that would ruin him. And hire private investigators to look into his finances, because there’s only one way that ends for a Chicago Alderman. . . .

But I guess that’s why people like to pick on those forgiving Christian types. It’s safer.

ANN ALTHOUSE BUSTS FOREIGN POLICY FOR DISHONEST EDITING. “I’m giving you the whole context that Foreign Policy didn’t want to deal with. It’s about the British decline into socialism. What do you say we take that seriously?”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Remember, when you send money to higher education administrators, you’re funding people who think a picture of The Joker is a terroristic threat.

And who will then tell you that higher education is important because it fosters “critical thinking.” Something like this might be grounds for further inquiry, but it’s hardly a terroristic threat. But university administrators tend to try to interpret any criticism as a threat, so as to have an excuse to bring the boot down on critics. Oh, well, at least it wasn’t a Firefly poster or anything.

KEITH HENNESSEY: The Policy Consequences of “You Didn’t Build That.”

Here the President dismisses the importance of intellect and effort as contributors to success. Is there any more charitable way to interpret this text?

While in the Roanoke remarks President Obama stresses the importance of government as a contributor to the economic success of businesses, in other contexts he emphasizes the importance of luck in economic success. He frequently refers to the rich as “blessed” and “fortunate.” . . .

In these cases and many others President Obama describes the rich as passive recipients of blessings or good fortune. He rarely credits skill, intelligence, savvy, hard work, or risk-taking as contributors to economic success. According to the President’s language, the rich are that way because they are blessed and fortunate (i.e., lucky), not because they worked harder than others, or were smarter, or savvier, or took bigger risks or sacrificed more. In this framework, success is given to you, not earned by you.

The key policy implication is that if he can convince enough people that you didn’t earn your success, he’ll face less opposition when he tries to take the fruits of your success for himself. And that’s what this whole “you didn’t build it” thing is about. I’m not taking your property away — it was really mine all along!

A STATE-BY-STATE GUIDE to EBT fraud and abuse.

Like the song says, they’ll turn us all into beggars ’cause they’re easier to please.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How To Shaft Taxpayers, TARP-style.

FOR FUTURE REFERENCE, Fort Knox is not in Knoxville.

CLIMATE OF FEAR: Hudson police investigating possible phone “harassment” of high-profile Mitt Romney supporter. “The New Hampshire businessman who appears in a Mitt Romney television ad accusing President Barack Obama of ‘demonizing’ small business owners has gone to his local police after receiving two ‘harassing’ telephone calls and, he says, hundreds of nasty emails.”

Tell ’em to f*ck off. That’s what I do. On the rare occasions that I respond at all.

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STEALTH: Democratic senators offer gun control amendment for cybersecurity bill.

DIVERSITY: Elizabeth Warren criticized by liberal supporter for almost all-white campaign HQ photo.

THIS SEEMS SERIOUSLY WRONG: U.S. District Court rules that stem cells are drugs. “Peter Aldhous from New Scientist reports today that the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, has ruled that a person’s own cultured stem cells are drugs subject to regulation by the Food and Drug Administration.”

CHICAGO VALUES: “A federal grand jury has formally indicted a former Chicago alderman and a former Cook County commissioner for alleged corruption.” Including kickbacks on bandages sold to public hospitals.

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NEW SATELLITES could make GPS harder to jam.