AT AMAZON, home and garden markdowns.

LAMAR ALEXANDER: Border security must precede path to citizenship for immigrants.

MATT CONTINETTI: The Bully Party:

The omens are everywhere. Iran is close to obtaining nuclear weapons. The eurozone is in crisis. The U.S. unemployment rate is near 10 percent. America’s social insurance programs threaten to bankrupt the country. And—most unusual—the Washington Nationals are above .500.

But rest easy. None of this is distracting the Obama administration and congressional Democrats from their fulltime occupation: demonizing the political opposition.

It’s their main tactic. Plus this: “The Democratic response to dissent is a lot like their governing style: partisan, arrogant, and self-righteous.”

HUMANITIES SCHOLARSHIP: Going with the flow.

THE COUNTERTERROR VALUE of street t-shirt vendors. With a Jane Jacobs angle. I just finished reading her Dark Age Ahead.

CHANGE: Gold hits 2010 highs in flight to safety. (Via NewsAlert).

TIM CAVANAUGH: What’s A Black Metal Band Gotta Do To Get Murdered By Religious Maniacs These Days?

FROM DONALD SENSING, a photo essay on flooding in Tennessee.

MEGAN MCARDLE: “Andrew seems very pleased by the progress we’re making with the auto bailout. I’m not seeing it. Am I really supposed to get excited by the astonishing revelation that when you pour tens of billions of dollars into a couple of failed companies, some of that money will end up in someone’s pocket, somewhere? . . . In answer to Andrew’s question–‘That auto restructuring last year was a disaster, wasn’t it?’–well, yes, it was.”

UBIQUITOUS VIDEO: CATCHING A THIEF:

Students sick of getting their lockers broken into and having their money disappear set up a cell phone camera to hopefully catch the crook in the act.

Deputies said the video showed the crook was Steven Simmons, 49, their PE teacher.

It’s news that spread quickly at North Marion High School.

“There’s videos going around and forwarded messages of his mug shot, and it’s crazy,” said Shelby Revels, a North Marion High student.

Deputies said at first Simmons denied going into the lockers.

However, when confronted with the video, they said he confessed to stealing money from students for years.

My prediction: The state Education Association will push for a law banning student video cameras in schools. . . .

WELCOME TO the deflation club.

FLOODING IN NASHVILLE: Reader Michael Bassham writes: “Flooding in downtown Nashville. This is at Rosa Parks Blvd and Locklayer, across from Farmer’s Market. This is a block from my house.” Note the nearly-submerged SUV in front of the store.

Thanks to the folks who’ve written worrying about me — but I’m not in Knoxville. I’m on travel and staying at a secure, undisclosed location where tornadoes do not appear to be a threat.

Related: Tennessee Got Pounded.

UPDATE: The indomitable spirit of the Internet remains, er, indomited.

HMM: Pakistani Taliban claim responsibility for Times Square bomb.

UPDATE: Claim is plausible.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Possible bomb in Pittsburgh. Stay tuned.

MORE: NYPD: No evidence of Taliban link. Of course, what would that evidence consist of, at this point? Best evidence against a Taliban connection is that the bomb sucked; they’ve got better bomb-making skills than that. . . .

I’VE WRITTEN REPEATEDLY on the importance of disaster-preparedness. Boston’s water problems are just another example of why it matters. You should keep at least a few gallons of water stored against emergencies. Also, remember that hot-water heaters and toilet tanks store many gallons and can be accessed in a pinch. But it’s not a bad idea to have some bottled water handy to avoid that. Also, a high-quality filter might be nice.

UPDATE: Here’s a post on water filters and other sources of emergency water.

ZOOM: A history of Nissan Z-Cars.

REASON TV: How The Hell Did GM Pay Back Its Loans “in Full And Ahead of Schedule”? Well, It Didn’t.

UPDATE: NYT: GM, Treasury lied about bailout repayment. “This article by Gretchen Morrison in the New York Times is significant for two reasons. First, the Times has decided to give this significant coverage, which means the story of GM’s misleading claim of paying back the taxpayer-funded bailout will continue to have some legs. More importantly, it also points the finger at Treasury and the Obama administration for its complicity in allowing CEO Ed Whitacre to make those claims without challenge.”

TOURING the psych-bloggers.

WHY CAN’T A MAN be more like a woman?

PROF. JACOBSON: We Are All Gillian Duffy Now.

TUNKU VARADARAJAN: Lloyd Blankfein’s PR Coup.

HOW TO START A FIRE with just compressed air.

STILL MORE on that Harvard Law School racial flap.

IN THE MAIL: From Jon Lauck, Prairie Republic: The Political Culture of Dakota Territory, 1879-1889.

MY WASHINGTON EXAMINER COLUMN IS UP: Tea Party movement likely to have unglamorous but effective future.

The first stage of Tea Party rallies was very important. The political apparatchiks and the Big Media folks built up — quite deliberately — a sense of inevitability around the Obama machine’s agenda of big government dominance. It was unstoppable, and wildly popular, according to the conventional storyline.

The rallies proved that it wasn’t as wildly popular as all that, and inspired many people who felt — as the storyline was intended to make them feel — powerless, outnumbered, and marginalized to realize that they were none of those things. That was a vital first step, the equivalent of the kid shouting that the emperor was naked.

But rallies without follow-through are just rallies. And the Tea Party movement is now following through with the grunt work of politics: Organizing precincts, waging primary battles, registering voters, and compiling mailing lists.

Read the whole thing!

DEMOCRACY’S MATH PROBLEM.