Or maybe this: “Brown said, the city will fix broken streetlights in certain places even as it discontinues such services as street and sidewalk repairs in ‘distressed’ areas — those with a high degree of blight and little or no commercial activity.” Forget Ayn Rand, this sounds like the “Abandoned Areas” in Robert Heinlein’s I Will Fear No Evil.

UPDATE: “A dangerous precedent.” I think the only way to remedy this is to go after lefty groups’ corporate support. Mutual Assured Destruction might bring peace. And if not, well, more lefty groups get corporate support anyway.

Or, if you’re so inclined, a trebuchet.

“More People Die from Guns Than Car Accidents in Michigan.”

So states a Detroit Free Press op-ed headline. . . . But wait: The number of accidental gun deaths in Michigan in 2009 (the most recent year reported in WISQARS) was … 12, compared to 962 accidental motor-vehicle-related deaths. 99% of the gun deaths in Michigan that year consisted of suicides (575) and homicides (495).

Now say what you will about whether some gun control laws might reduce suicides or homicides, but it’s extremely unlikely that any “safety-related changes” or “regulat[ions] … for health and safety” are going to eliminate all but a tiny fraction of those suicides and homicides, which are overwhelmingly intentional acts by people who are willing to kill and are unlikely to be stopped by “regulat[ion] by the federal government for health and safety.” Yet curiously the op-ed says nothing about how few of the gun deaths were accidental, and how few homicides or suicides could be prevented by “safety-related changes” along the lines of the safety regulations imposed on cars.

This also helps explain, I think, why gun rights supporters are so worried about “health and safety” proposals. Precisely because such proposals are so unlikely to have much of an effect, the gun rights supporters naturally assume that the backers of the proposals aren’t really after modest car-like “regulat[ions] … for health and safety,” but are actually trying to bring about much more aggressive sorts of gun restrictions.

Indeed. Especially when such proposals are advanced so dishonestly.

Kueber argues that midcentury modest homes have a lot going for them — high-quality materials, excellent craftsmanship and attractive appearances. She even loves what she calls the “’57 Chevy colors” that were common in bathrooms of the era, which she sees as cheerful.

Kueber said she’s found a following among younger homeowners, as well as middle-age people who feel nostalgic about the era. The popularity of the ’60s TV series “Mad Men” hasn’t hurt, either. Because of it, “midcentury modern has penetrated the mainstream in a big way,” she said.

That’s restoration, not renovation.

Despite a growing backlash from his fellow Democrats, President Obama has doubled down on his attacks on Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital. But the strategy could backfire in ways Obama did not anticipate. After all, if Romney’s record in private equity is fair game, then so is Obama’s record in public equity — and that record is not pretty.

Since taking office, Obama has invested billions of taxpayer dollars in private businesses, including as part of his stimulus spending bill. Many of those investments have turned out to be unmitigated disasters — leaving in their wake bankruptcies, layoffs, criminal investigations and taxpayers on the hook for billions. . . . Amazingly, Obama has declared that all the projects received funding “based solely on their merits.” But as Hoover Institution scholar Peter Schweizer reported in his book, “Throw Them All Out,” fully 71 percent of the Obama Energy Department’s grants and loans went to “individuals who were bundlers, members of Obama’s National Finance Committee, or large donors to the Democratic Party.”

Follow the link for many examples.

UPDATE: More bad staff work: Obama visiting wind turbine factory where private equity blows gov’t financing away.

Some people think you should take a broader view. “”It’s funny and sometimes quasi-useful to read about zombie survival and all that, but in my humble opinion, zombies are not a viable focal point due to lack of reality.”

Please consider linking to the Amazon sales page for What About the Boy? A Father’s Pledge to His Disabled Son. (I do hope this is not asking too much, since it was one of your “received in the mail” titles last September. That day was my all-time best in terms of sales.)

I think you would have been interested in a fascinating conference I attended Saturday, in which prominent researchers provided high-level summaries of the work underway on understanding and finding treatments for neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders. (Please let me know if you would like to see my typed notes from that event.) My personal blog post about it is here.

Happy to oblige.

Related: The Remote Control As Subversive Technology. “By allowing the user to move rapidly between program offerings and avoid unpleasant or uninteresting material, the [remote control] works in opposition to the historic structure and operational parameters of the U.S. television industry.”

Nice to see you putting down Mitt Romney from the vantage point of your massive private-sector experience, Prez.

But actually, as InstaPundit readers know, the Secret Service has had problems with poor management and toxic internal politics for quite a while.

I doubt they’ll be able to bully Roberts into supporting ObamaCare, particularly since such a move would look like a surrender to political pressure, undermining the Court. And since ObamaCare is deeply and increasingly unpopular with the public, overturning it is hardly going to delegitimize the Court with the public.

I have to say, though, that I’ve lost respect for the participants in this shaming effort. It’s so transparent.

Plus, today only: HP 32 GB Class 10 SDHC Flash Memory Card, $22.49.

Richey had a series of misdemeanor convictions for criminal trespass and simple battery. Channel 2 Action News has now learned Richey also had a felony conviction for aggravated assault in 1998 but was sentenced as a first-time offender. When he completed his sentence, the felony was wiped from his record.

That doesn’t mean it never happened, though, and suing people is no way to keep it from being mentioned. I’ve warned people about this kind of thing. More than once.

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh is unimpressed with Richey’s complaint.

So Richey’s only argument seems to be that calling someone with several misdemeanor conviction and one felony conviction that was expunged (just because it was a first offense, and not on the grounds that Richey had been exonerated) a “recidivist” is recklessly or knowingly false because “recidivist” is reserved for people with multiple felony convictions. But I don’t think that the term is limited to felonies in ordinary language, and I don’t think reasonable readers of the blog would have so understood the word; rather, a typical lay reader would likely see it as simply accusation of multiple criminal offenses — an accusation that appears to be true.

And that is being talked about more, thanks to Richey’s suit. Criminal record aside, this kind of obvious PR stupidity ought to disqualify him for a political-director slot on its own, I’d think.