Despite efforts to stop them, criminal street gangs have been active inside the U.S. military. And, according to one recent report, the situation has gotten much worse.

I have a theory about the canary in the coal mine. I expect that before it died of asphyxiation, it would panic and chirp loudly and vigorously at the prospect of its coming demise. It would then fall silent, and pass out, and its change in behavior would warn the miners that the air in the mine had become foul.

The use of canaries in coal mines to warn miners of the danger of accumulating noxious vapors is not just an "old wives' tale." As recently as the 1980s, miners in the UK used the birds to warn of danger. The practice was described by the BBC, which noted that, beginning in 1911, tradition held that two canaries should be "employed by each pit."

Are you a photographer? Do you like to take photos when you travel, maybe at airports? How about airplanes? Marvels of technical achievement, they inspire awe, and some photographers like to take their pictures. The new Boeing 787 Dreamliner is a beautiful machine, amazingly graceful despite its size. It looks good in a picture.

It’s one of the most penetrating statements ever uttered in the modern age, so insightful that in 2007 it was added to the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations. What marvel of philosophical brilliance is this, you ask? It’s nothing less than the timeless advice given to children by their father: “Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is never try.”

After two years of economic turmoil it seems that the message that governments are spending too much money is finally getting out. In fact, the crisis today is solely caused by government spending far too much, and doing so while pretending, Keynesian style, that the spending will actually fix the economy.

In China, one man has had enough. Yang Youde, who lives near the city of Wuhan, has had to begin defending his property rights with homemade artillery.

He's not fighting off who you might think. There are no roving gangs of thugs, no sneaky, shifty criminals eager to invade his home. No, privatized criminals like these present no threat to Yang. Instead, the threat comes from his own government.

The Obama administration and the Democrats are openly hostile to the First Amendment. On that issue, here is the scoreboard so far:

Gas is getting expensive again. A year ago, according to AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report, the price of a gallon of regular unleaded was $2.051. That was a reasonable price, one, relatively speaking, that did not hurt American pocketbooks.

For years government has been using declarations of eminent domain to seize private property and use it, supposedly, for the public good. It's a practice that has been abused, and is almost always controversial.