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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Will Obama’s Ego Cause Him To Force A Government Shutdown?

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Suspended Student May Be Expelled for Rest of the Year for Playing With Toy Gun…in His Own Yard. Sending a kid — especially a boy — to public school is looking more and more like parental malpractice.

TOO BAD MORE PEOPLE WEREN’T ARMED: SAS hero of the mall massacre: Off duty soldier with a handgun saved 100 lives as terrorists ran amok.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: From Nassim Taleb’s Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder.

It is optionality that makes things work and grow — but it takes a certain type of person for that. Many people keep deploring the low level of formal education in the United States (as defined by, say, math grades). Yet these people fail to realize that the new comes from here and gets imitated elsewhere. And it is not thanks to universities, which obviously claim a lot more credit than their accomplishments warrant.

Indeed. Also:

No one at present dares to state the obvious: Growth in society may not come from raising the average the Asian way, but from increasing the number of people in the “tails,” that small, very small number of risk takers crazy enough to have ideas on their own, those endowed with that very rare ability called imagination, that rarer quality called courage, and who make things happen.

Universities aren’t the best place to look for those people, either.

EXCEPT THERE WON’T BE A SHUTDOWN UNLESS OBAMA VETOES THE BUDGET: White House: GOP shutdown threat ‘utterly irresponsible.’ Will Obama veto it? It depends on whether his ego is in the driver’s seat.

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WELL, THAT GETS MY VOTE! Republicans Will Win The Government Shutdown PR Battle If They Promise Voters Private Jets. “If someone had said in 1903 (when the Wright brothers first took flight) that flying would within the 20th century become a pedestrian and often bothersome necessity, that person too would have been laughed out of the room. But with government on all levels consuming exponentially less capital in the early part of the 20th century, huge technological leaps were taking place thanks to extra capital in the private sector funding all manner of commercial experimentation. To deny the correlation between small government and big private sector advances is to ignore basic economics. . . . To state what’s obvious, Republicans should talk about how much better our lives will be, how much more we’ll earn, and how much more often we’ll be blown away by staggering technological innovations if the federal government is consuming much less of our hard-earned money. In short, Republicans should talk about the private jets we’ll all eventually own if the economy-suffocating growth of government is reversed by the Republican Party.” Nonsense. Obamaphones are “investments.”

THE MIRACULOUS POWER OF MEAT: A lifelong vegetarian told she would never have children has given birth to triplets after she started eating meat.

LEE STRANAHAN REPORTS FROM BEIRUT: Do American Christians Care About Syrian Christians?

MIKE RAPPAPORT: The 14th Amendment Equality Requirement Does Not Apply to the Federal Government.

Related thoughts from Will Baude.

INSTAPUNDIT READERS KNOW THAT I LIKE TO WRITE ABOUT CLEANING SOMETIMES, from the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser (it really is magic!) to the multi-functional Barkeeper’s Friend. (I’m a Virgo. We’re clean.) But over the weekend I got this Bissell carpet spotcleaner and it did very well. Our carpets generally have an easy life, but I traipse back and forth between the kitchen upstairs and the Insta-Bunker downstairs several times a day carrying coffee, red wine, etc. (And when my sister-in-law visits, the same thing happens with her going upstairs to the guest room). About once a year we get a carpet cleaner to come and clean the carpets, which gets rid of the inevitable spots. But half an hour with this gadget and they were all gone. We had a Hoover steam-vac some years ago, but I don’t know if the cleaners are better (that’s my guess) or if this gadget is just better, but it worked like a charm. Paid for itself with one use.

ROGER SIMON: Islam Needs An Intervention.

HMM: Unlike 1995, Americans say they would blame GOP, Democrats equally for shutdown. I suspect this reflects two things: Obama’s political skills being inferior to Bill Clinton’s, and the traditional media having less power.

FIRST LOIS LERNER OUT, NOW THIS: Exclusive–IRS Offers True The Vote Tax Exempt Status, Files to Dismiss Lawsuit. Reportedly, they were worried about discovery. I can imagine.

TECHNOLOGY MARCHES ON: Plucking A Chicken In 14 Seconds With The Homemade Whizbang Chicken Plucker. Actually, it’s pretty impressive.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN IS UP: Will Obama’s Ego Cause Him To Force A Government Shutdown?

THROWING THE BABY OFF THE BACK OF THE SLEIGH: IRS Official At Heart Of Tea Party Scandal Retires.

REASON TV: Anarchy In Detroit: How Ordinary Citizens Are Stepping Up. “But while politicians, unions, and investors slug it out in bankruptcy court and grasp for their share of what little cash is left, ordinary citizens are left to fend for themselves in a city with no functioning government. This is Reason TV’s coverage of what happens when people are left to their own devices and forced to come up with creative ways to pick up the pieces and find solutions in a city they once loved.”

HAPPY BLOGGIVERSARY TO the Victory Girls.

SUSANNAH BRESLIN: A Girl And A .22. “The fastest growing consumer segment in the firearms business is women. . . . A handgun makes the short woman tall, the anxious woman less afraid.”

MARK MECKLER: I Double Dare You, Mr. President: Veto the Defunding of Obamacare.

“MY BOYFRIEND IS A REAL NEANDERTHAL.” “REALLY? THAT’S AWESOME!” Man Uses Spear to Save Girlfriend from Mountain Lion. “After the incident conservation officers scoured the surrounding countryside in search of the animal. With the help of a cougar hunter, they found the animal’s carcass a short distance away from the house. It appeared to have died from the spear-inflicted wounds.”

My favorite part is this bit, though: “Officials say the dead cougar was a three-year-old male and an investigation is undergoing to find out what made it aggressive towards humans on the island.” The answer, of course, is that they’re delicious and no longer shoot cougars. He just miscalculated about the whole spear thing.

And, yeah, time for the obligatory David Baron, call your office bit.

THE CARNIVAL OF SPACE is up!

NEWS YOU CAN USE: The Galaxy’s Core Is About To Explode. Larry Niven, call your office.