RICHARD EPSTEIN: The Dick Durbin Debit Card Fiasco. Is there anything Durbin does that isn’t?

THANKS, HUGH! It’s nice not to be taken for granted!

YEAH, THAT’S THE TICKET: Hilarious: HUD Stooge Says Obama Housing Plan Will Expand ‘Strong Recovery.’

GET A ROOM, YOU TWO: Ace Teaches Amanda Marcotte The Facts Of Life.

MEGAN MCARDLE: Can Bezos Save the Washington Post From Print’s Dismal Economics? “Old media right now is like a camel, living off stored fat. But that can’t go on forever, and it won’t. The new line on old media is that they brought this upon themselves by reacting to their advertising declines in exactly the wrong way — cutting staff, which generally means cutting quality and depth of reporting.”

Some of us have been saying this for a while.

YOU CAN SEE WHY HUMA WAS SO EAGER TO HITCH HER WAGON TO THIS POLITICAL STAR: Weiner to 69-year-old at AARP event: “What are you going to do about it, grandpa?”

On Twitter, a suggested reply.

PUTTING THE “BOMB” IN BLONDE BOMBSHELL.

IVY LEAGUE PUSHBACK: Reader Eric Von Salzen writes:

Columbia Magazine, an alumni publication of Columbia University, published in its Spring issue a laudatory profile of Benjamin Jealous, the head of the NAACP. Today I received the Summer issue and all of the letters to the editor commenting on the article were critical of Jealous and the NAACP. The first two letters. for example, took issue with the claim, made on the cover of the Spring issue, that the NAACP was the oldest civil rights organization in the US. Not so, the letter writers said, the NRA is an older and more effective civil rights organization.

Here’s a link to the letters.

Interesting.

FLASHBACK: Airport Security, Circa 1984.

FASTER, PLEASE: Discovery could lead to end of sunburn pain. I’m at the beach, you know. . . .

AT AMAZON, late-summer deals in Patio, Lawn & Garden.

WE’RE SEEING A LOT OF THIS SORT OF THING: Larry Schweikart and Burton Folsom: Obama’s False History of Public Investment: Entrepreneurs built our roads, rails and canals far better than government did.

CHICAGO’S PENSION CRISIS IN BLACK AND WHITE:

The fact that the Times is giving Chicago’s long-festering mess such prominent coverage this morning is a testament to how Detroit’s thunderous collapse has made all these sorts of previously over-the-horizon problems seem a lot closer and menacing. Also prominently featured in the article is the blue civil war simmering beneath the service: public unions are squaring off against Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who has threatened to increase retirement ages and freeze inflation adjustments to union benefit plans in order to help cushion the impact of those approaching mandatory increases in the city’s outlays.

The article’s best quote goes to another close Obama aide who’s running against Governor Pat Quinn in next year’s elections, William M. Daley: “Anyone who thinks that this is just a problem on paper, those are the same people who looked at Detroit 20 years ago and said, ‘Don’t worry about it, we can handle it.’” We’re glad to see that at least a couple of the cogs in Chicago’s long-ruling Democratic machine have awoken to the crisis at the city’s doorstep. Better late than never.

The one unspoken question: can Obama stand idly by if his hometown starts going down the tubes on his watch?

No bailouts.

I REMEMBER HER COMING TO YALE LAW SCHOOL AND BEING TREATED LIKE SOME SORT OF PROGRESSIVE. D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton Hopes Bezos Can Save WaPo from the Scourge of New Media.

IS NOTHING SAFE? Millions of Kwikset Smartkey Locks Vulnerable to Hacking, Say Researchers. “Locks that are used in millions of homes and residential buildings worldwide and that are designed specifically to thwart hacking are easily opened with both a screwdriver and wire, two researchers say.”

BLOGGING’S FIRST PEER REVIEW. “Last year, I became the first person to publish in a peer-reviewed academic journal under a blogging pseudonym. Earlier this year I did it again. I can now announce that I’m also (I think) the first blogger to act as a peer reviewer under my pseudonym.” Well, anonymous blogging’s first, anyway.

NOW THAT’S JUST TACKY: Inside The Plot To Egg The Director Of The NSA. You’re supposed to be hackers. Do something clever.

AT AMAZON, Pulitzer-Prize-Winning Fiction.

REASON TV: “Startup Cities,” Honduras, and Experiments in Freedom.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Obama’s Watergates: Denial, evasion, “Let me be perfectly clear” — is this 2013 or 1973?

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: A Select Committee Needed In IRS, Benghazi Scandals. “Americans were killed at Benghazi and our system of free government is threatened by IRS misbehavior. If life and liberty are not good enough reasons for establishing a select committee, what is?”

PERHAPS AN UNFORTUNATE TERM: Chevy Announces “Fire-Sale” on Volt.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: “Should I get back with him now that he’s got some money?”

BUSTED: Chinese Hacking Team Caught Taking Over Decoy Water Plant: A hacking group accused of being operated by the Chinese army now seems to be going after industrial control systems.

I WAS EXPECTING AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: Big Pic: All Of The Asteroids That Could Potentially End The World. All of the known asteroids, anyway.