Today is May 22nd. On this date in 1813, composer Wilhelm Richard Wagner was born. Today, he is best known for Ride of the Valkyries (Ritt der Walküren) from his opera Die Walküre, which he wrote for the movie The Blues Brothers. Also born on this date, in 1859, was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes and fan of cocaine. Doyle once famously said “Any truth is better than indefinite doubt”, but I’m not so sure. On this date, in 1849, Abraham Lincoln received a patent for his floating dry dock. Take that, Millard Fillmore! And finally, today is “International Day for Biological Diversity”, in honor of which we continue to have Moe Lane on the front page. Consider this an Open Thread.

Student defends criticism of Obama after being berated by teacher | Fox News
“The North Carolina high school student who was berated by his teacher after he spoke critically of President Obama told Fox News on Monday that he wanted to ‘laugh’ when he heard the teacher suggest he could be arrested for criticizing a sitting president.”

Romney-style capitalism vs. Obama-style capitalism | Enterprise Blog
“Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne writes today, ‘In this election, we’re not having an argument that pits capitalism against socialism. We are trying to decide what kind of capitalism we want.’”

Chris Matthews Tells Black Preacher To ‘Evolve’ | The Blaze
“… the Hardball host yesterday pressed black church leaders to get on board with Obama and his new-found views of gay marriage.”

Should International Bureaucracies Get Taxing Powers or Direct Funding? | Daniel Mitchell
“Unfortunately, proponents of global taxes are like the Energizer Bunny of big government, relentlessly pushing a statist agenda.”

Rendell: Hey, can you believe these Bain attacks from Obama? | Hot Air
“Ed Rendell joins Harold Ford and Cory Booker as critics within Barack Obama’s own party of his electoral strategy of demonizing private equity.”

Anti-Walker Bias Surfaces in Much Politicized Legal Probe from briansikma.

obambulate (o-BAM-byuh-layt): verb To walk about.
(via Wordsmith.org.)