HOW MANY MORE YEARS does the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Have Left?

LIST: 20 books on survival.

IS THIS A BOOK CONTRACT, or some kind of payola?

ANDREW ROBERTS: Heroine Stupor. This is kinda like the Burka/Bikini equivalence trope: One of those things so stupid only intellectuals could possibly believe it.

STAGGERING SALES: Chevy Volt sales drop to 603, Nissan moves 676 Leafs in January. “This one has got to hurt. After a record-best 1,529 units sold in December, sales of the Chevrolet Volt dropped to just 603 in January, part of an overall decline in GM model sales compared to the last month of 2011. The good news in this less-than-half drop? If you look at the year-on-year trend, the Volt almost doubled its sales. In January 2011, Chevy sold 321 Volts.” Well, okay then.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, CHRISTIANISTS WOULD CONTROL THE GOVERNMENT. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Obama: I Pushed Dodd-Frank And Health Care Reform Because Of Christ. “The president said he often falls to his knees in prayer, and emphasized the role of his religious values in determining where to lead the country.”

PROF. JACOBSON: So tell me about Ted Cruz.

MEGAN MCARDLE: Why Did Susan G. Komen Pull The Plug On Planned Parenthood? “Goldberg clearly disapproves of the decision. Though I’m pro-choice, I don’t share the outrage that was roiling my twitter feed this morning. It is, as Josh Barro noted, absurd to pretend that abortion is somehow incidental to Planned Parenthood’s services, and since money is fungible, giving them money is probably helping to fund abortion provision. Since I think this is a very tough issue on which reasonable people can disagree, I can see why the federal government, and private foundations, would decline to fund their operations.” And why other people are now sending in checks to make up the difference.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN . . . OH, HELL, YOU KNOW THE REST: Feds’ secret no-fly list more than doubles in a year. “Even as the Obama administration says it’s close to defeating al-Qaida, the size of the government’s secret list of suspected terrorists who are banned from flying to or within the United States has more than doubled in the past year, The Associated Press has learned. The no-fly list jumped from about 10,000 known or suspected terrorists one year ago to about 21,000, according to government figures provided to the AP.”

Change!

HANDGUN REVIEW: The Kahr CM9.

JOEL KOTKIN: Who Stands The Most To Win – And Lose – From A Second Obama Term.

BARACK OBAMA, THREE YEARS AGO TODAY: “If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.”

TESTOSTERONE cuts female cooperation.

ROGER KIMBALL: Matt Drudge: Genius Of Juxtaposition.

MICKEY KAUS: What Does Obama Do All Day? “Are you impressed with the image of Obama-at-work left by Ryan Lizza’s “Obama Memos” piece in the New Yorker? The President’s decision-making method–at least as described in the piece–seems to consist mainly of checking boxes on memos his aides have written for him.”

GUNS AND SELF-DEFENSE: New Cato Study: Tough Targets.

The paper makes many excellent points, but I’ll mention just three here. First, the average person tends to imagine that these self-defense situations involve criminals getting shot. Such cases do occur, but the overwhelming number of self-defense cases involve situations where the gun is never fired.

The second point relates to the first. The average person usually does not hear about defensive gun cases because news media organizations do not consider the incidents worthy of coverage. If a burglar runs away from a break-in when he discovers that someone is at the home and is armed, it may only garner a terse mention in the paper, if it makes the newspaper at all. With no shot fired, no injuries, and no suspect in custody, newspeople typically decline coverage. The point here is not to criticize the news media’s handling of such incidents–rather it is just to remind readers that we tend to hear about criminals using guns to perpetrate crimes, but we do not hear about many self-defense cases. In this milieu, it is understandable why many people would develop negative opinions about guns.

Third, when a gun owner does shoot a rapist or is able to hold a burglar at gunpoint until the police arrive on the scene, it is very likely that more than one crime has been prevented. That’s because had the culprit not been stopped, he very likely would have targeted other people as well.

Indeed. Plus, Cato has a new project to track defensive firearm uses. You can help!

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Beyond Blue Part Two: Recasting The Dream.

CHANGE: Indiana Is Now A Right-to-Work State.

OPERATION COUNTERWEIGHT: Building An Unbossable Senate. “It understates the case to say that some conservatives are disappointed with the idea of nominating former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to face President Obama this fall. So what to do if and when Romney finally sews this up? The temptation is always there to drop out of the political process. But if conservatives are interested in advancing their cause from beneath Romney’s banner — as they will likely have to — they must think beyond the presidential race and to the elections that will provide context to its result for the next four years.”

UPDATE: Reader Roland Mar writes: “I have been recommending a two part process. If you cannot bring yourself to vote for Obama-lite Romney, vote for the Green Party candidate. The goal is to push them over the threshold of votes to qualify them for Federal funding in future elections. If the Greens can afford to run a real national campaign, their followers will vote for Green candidates in any future election rather than for Democrats like now. The second part is to concentrate getting Conservative/Patriot candidates elected to the House and Senate. Not all Republicans meet that qualification.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Mark Martin disagrees with the Obama-lite business:

Okay, Glenn, your reader is one of those Jack Ripper “Purity of Essence” types. You can say Romney isn’t conservative enough for you, sure. But Obama like?

That’s childish and silly. Hey, we *know* that the Governor doesn’t want to “spread money around”!

Seriously, these POE types are going to get us Four Worse Years. And *then* they will complain and carry on.

Well, Romney’s better than Zeeba, and I’d vote Zeeba over Obama.

COMPARISON: One Year Later, Another Look At Obamanomics vs. Reaganomics.

JIM VANDEHEI: Why Obama Should Be Worried. His other problem is that the press will bend over backwards — or just plain bend over — in order to save his presidency, but if it looks like he’s going down they’ll turn on him and try to prove their objectivity by reporting all the bad stuff they’ve been soft-pedaling to date.

And note this: “Heck, Ron Paul is running only a few points behind Obama, and he’s yet to win more than 23 percent of the vote in a GOP primary or caucus.”

RAND SIMBERG: Nine Years of Space Policy Disaster. (Bumped).

SUSANNAH BRESLIN: The Biggest Career Mistakes Millennials Make.

LIGHTSQUARED UPDATE: Businessman accused of trying to bribe senator denies wrongdoing. “Todd Ruelle, a businessman accused of inappropriately trying to pressure Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to support wireless startup LightSquared, denied any wrongdoing in a letter to Grassley on Wednesday.”