21ST CENTURY LAW ENFORCEMENT: FBI Discovers Seizing Bitcoins Not As Easy As It Thought.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: A DIY Guide To Painting Your Car.

RATS ON THE WEST SIDE, BEDBUGS UPTOWN:

Bed bugs invaded North American cities several decades ago and have wreaked havoc ever since. They hide under mattresses, biting the unsuspecting and requiring expensive extermination.

The concern, the researchers say, is that bed bugs will become as ubiquitous and common as the cockroach.

“We’re definitely headed in that direction,” said Coby Schal, a professor of entomology at North Carolina State University. “Bed bugs are what cockroaches were several decades ago and it is a concern.”

I’m really surprised we’re not seeing more black-market DDT. I guess we haven’t yet reached the point where, following the observation of reader Joan Pickett, pranksters could salt the Congressional and White House cloakrooms with bedbugs. But as a thought experiment, it’s interesting to think about how quickly the laws would probably change if our Ruling Class were sufficiently afflicted. . . .

NARRATIVE: Obama Throws Reid Under the Bus: Hey, That Guy’s In Charge of All of This, Not Me.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Service to screen sperm donors for disease by creating virtual ‘babies.’

OUT: UGLY AMERICANS. IN: UGLY CHINESE. No peeing in the pool, nose picking or stealing life jackets from the plane: China issues ‘civilised’ travel guidebook for tourists heading abroad. “While several countries have eased visa restrictions to attract affluent Chinese tourists, complaints about etiquette have made international headlines lately.”

CENSORSHIP: ACLU: Administration Blocking Book By Fast & Furious Whistleblower. Well, of course. This is who they are; this is what they do.

NICK KRISTOF RECITES THE JOURNOLIST TALKING POINTS: As journalists, we must be careful to properly blame Republicans for this shutdown.

ANOTHER HATE CRIME IN OBAMA’S AMERICA: White Army Soldier Murdered, Was Called ‘Cracker’ by Suspects.

GEORGE WILL: ‘Republicans Now Have What Liberals Are Supposed to Admire… Diversity.’

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 151.

HA HA HA! “Of course, I want people to have health care,” Vinson said. “I just didn’t realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally.”

SO SAD, VLAD: Russia Waking Up to Shale Realities.

Russia has long relied on its enormous oil and gas reserves to not only heat and power its homes, but also to fund its government. But as blessed by resources as it has been, it has also displayed an impressive ability to stay behind the curve of an energy landscape that is changing now faster than ever. Nowhere is this more true than with its handling of the recent shale revolution, which has to this point consisted of denials and dragged feet. . . .

Unlike China, Russia has been drilling for oil for decades, so much of the requisite infrastructure—the pipelines, the refineries, the roads, the workforce—is already there. Unfortunately for Rosneft, it looks like Siberia’s shale plays lack the clean “wedding cake” geology that America enjoys, that allows for relatively simple and predictable horizontal well drilling.

Russia has so far been extremely slow to change course and recognize the potential new sources of energy fracking has unleashed on the world. Taking the short-term view, this isn’t a huge problem, as it still has enormous conventional sources of oil and gas. But oil and gas output is stagnating, and once hugely productive fields are petering out. Given that, and given the fact that Russia has the world’s largest shale oil reserves and ninth largest shale gas reserves, continuing to sluggishly adapt will have huge opportunity costs for the waning global power.

I can live with that.

YOU MAY SAY THAT HE’S A DREAMER. BUT HE’S NOT THE ONLY ONE. Roger Simon: What If They Shut Down The Entire Government?

AT AMAZON, Fall Fashion for Women.

Also, new Men’s Watches.

Also, today only: Up to 70% Off PNY Flash Memory, USB Drives, and Smartphone Batteries.

MICHAEL BARONE: Obama Administration Cracks Down On Journalists More Than Any Since Woodrow Wilson. Like I keep saying, if the press doesn’t like this, just cover him like you’d cover a Republican President.

Related: Why Reporters Fear Team Obama. They kind of like being afraid of them, though. It’s sort of an S&M thing, I think.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Minority Law Professors Oppose Abolition of Tenure.

CBS NEWS: Ulterior Motives? Dr. Ben Carson Believes IRS Audit Tied To His Politics.

Reminder: In 2009, President Obama “Joked” About Auditing His Enemies.

THE INCOME TAX’S UNHAPPY 100TH BIRTHDAY. “Critics warned a century ago that the new tax would ultimately be ruinous. The income tax ‘will tax the honest and allow the dishonest to escape,’ the New York Times wrote. The Times warned that in any emergency the tax rates would be sure to rise and that ‘its unpopularity will grow with its life.’……..Today, the heavy burden of taxes is clearly a major drag on our country’s economy. The U.S. now has the highest corporate tax rates in the industrialized world. In 1913, the total number of pages in the tax code was only 400. Today, it’s 73,954.”

IN BLOOMBERGISTAN, THE POLICE ARE THERE, THEY’RE JUST NOT THERE TO PROTECT YOU: Revealed: FIVE off-duty NYPD officers were among the bikers involved in SUV attack but not one of them intervened to help father as he was viciously beaten.

BLUE MODEL UPDATE: California Teachers Association Members Don’t Have To Pay For The Union’s Political Operations.

The state’s second-largest lobbyist in terms of dollars spent is none other than the California Teachers Association. In the course of a decade, the CTA has spent more than $50 million alone lobbying politicians for legislation aimed at protecting and expanding its interests, usually at students’ and taxpayers’ expense. Few teachers realize, however, that they don’t have to finance the CTA’s political agenda. California may not be a right-to-work state, but most public school teachers have the right to a yearly rebate of $350 to $400 from their union—money that would otherwise line CTA lobbyists’ and political consultants’ pockets. . . .

Republican or conservative teachers are paying the union to support candidates and causes they oppose. For apolitical teachers, the question is why they should pay to support any causes or candidates at all? But teachers can forgo paying the political portion. It bears repeating that several U.S. Supreme Court rulings deny unions the right to force members to subsidize their political agenda. Teachers never hear this message when they join the CTA. They often aren’t aware that “agency-fee payers” (nonunion members) can request a rebate, even though they’re still forced to pay for “chargeable expenses” that are “germane to the union’s representational functions.”

To make teachers aware of their union membership options, the California Teachers Empowerment Network and the California Public Policy Center have launched the California Teacher Freedom Project. Its aim: to inform California teachers that they don’t have to pay for their union’s costly hyper-partisan agenda. The project’s website provides step-by-step information on how teachers can become agency-fee payers, get the yearly rebate, and join nonunion, nonpartisan, professional alternatives.

I’m sure that’s somehow racist or something.

JOHN ONDRASIK SHOVED OUT OF JEFFERSON MEMORIAL: I asked him “why do you have to put your hands on me and push me out when I’m leaving anyways”…he replied “it’s quicker this way”…

Duane Patterson comments:

Look, we know the meme has been written within mainstream media since before the shutdown began. It’s the Republicans’ intransigence that has caused all this. There certainly will be plenty of time to debate the wisdom and efficacy of the strategy. But can we not just recognize what’s going on here? The President is a tyrant. That’s what you call people who act in a tyrannical manner.

MSM might continue to cover up the horrible optics of the childish and despotic lengths President Obama’s administration will go to make sure the effects of the shutdown are felt as painfully as possible to make a political point. But all of you who read this have a voice. You can help by multiplying John’s message by showing what’s really going on. Retweet it, if you’re on Twitter, post it, if you’re on Facebook, or if nothing else, tell others what this government is doing. The fight in Washington is more than just Obamacare. It always has been. It’s about what happens when a government gets too big and decides it doesn’t serve the people anymore.

More here.

MORE SHUTDOWN THEATER: Feds evict elderly couple from their home, cite shutdown.

National Park Service officials cited the government shutdown as the reason for ordering an elderly Nevada couple out of their home, which sits on federal land.

“Unfortunately overnight stays are not permitted until a budget is passed and the park can reopen,” an NPS spokesman explained to KTNV.

Ralph and Joyce Spencer, aged 80 and 77, respectively, own their home, but the government owns the land on which it sits.

“I had to be sure and get his walker and his scooter that he has to go in,” Joyce Spencer told the local news outlet. “We’re not hurt in any way except it might cost me if I have to go buy more pants.”

Similarly, the NPS forced privately-operated inns on the Blue Ridge Parkway to close during the shut down.

“We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can,” an unnamed park ranger told the Washington Times. “It’s disgusting.”

Yes, it is. I hope there are many lawsuits and FOIA requests over this.

DAVE CARTER: When The Bleeding Heart Becomes The Iron Fist.

Whatever the perceived shortcomings of Ted Cruz and his hardy band of stalwarts, they’ve performed a remarkable public service by highlighting the fate that awaits all who rub wrongly the translucently thin skin of King Barack the Petulant. The Spartans may have had their shields, Native Americans their tomahawks and arrows, the Samurai may have wielded his sword with all the deadly grace of a tiger in mid-attack, but pound for pound, nothing comes close to the audacious stupidity of “Barrycades” and people in pointy little Smokey the Bear hats, poised to protect America’s monuments from law-abiding citizens.

Welcome to liberal utopia, where barriers are not erected against terrorists or illegal aliens on our nation’s borders, but rather against citizens, and where wheelchair-bound veterans enroute to honor their comrades face tighter security than terrorists enroute to murder a US Ambassador. This is where up is down, wrong is right, illegality is celebrated as progress, and where Constitutionalism is derided as racist. No longer relegated to the fever swamps of academic fancy, utopia has acquired real estate and made known its demands.

“Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual…” the First Lady warned us, and she wasn’t just whistling Alinsky either.

Read the whole thing. Meanwhile, pranksters may wish to respond to the shutdown by blocking off federal employee parking lots with orange cones.