Fact Check, from the AP. Fun reading, from a surprising source, considering how generally the media's lips have been so firmly attached to the President's backside for so long.

Why does Miss California get tougher questions than Barack Obama does?

Update: Dennis Miller thought of this first. Darn.

So says Griffith J. Winthrop III, the lawyer for Orlando's Chief of Police Val Demings, who is suing blogger Ezell "Easy" Harris, who is apparently highly critical of the Chief:

Winthrop would not elaborate on Demings' claims or the logic behind them. He said he prefers to argue the matter in court.

"Truth is not always a defense," Winthrop said. "I hope he [Harris] gets himself a really good lawyer," he said.

Hm. Is the lawyer admitting that whatever Harris has written about the Chief is true? It seems so from this distant vantage point.

Via Coyote Blog.

Saturn, once touted at GM's future, the nameplate which would lead GM's counterattack against the more efficient, less unionized Japanese carmakers, is being killed off.

As part of the revised Viability Plan and the need to move faster and further, GM in the U.S. will focus its resources on four core brands, Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC. The Pontiac brand will be phased out by the end of 2010. GM will offer a total of 34 nameplates in 2010, a reduction of 29 percent from 48 nameplates in 2008, reflecting both the reduction in brands and continued emphasis on fewer and stronger entries. This four-brand strategy will enable GM to better focus its new product development programs and provide more competitive levels of market support.

The revised plan moves up the resolution of Saab, Saturn, and Hummer to the end of 2009, at the latest. Updates on these brands will be provided as these initiatives progress.

Meanwhile, Senator Arlen Specter (RINO-PA) has dropped the R and will be a Democrat henceforth.

Specter faced an extraordinarily difficult re-election challenge in his home state in 2010, having first to confront a challenge from his right in the Republican primary before pivoting to a general election campaign against a Democrat.

"I am unwilling to have my twenty-nine year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate," he said in the statement.

Facing a probable defeat in the 2010 Republican primary election in Pennsylvania, Look-out-for-Number-One Specter finds his true home in the party of unlimited governmental power and centralized authority, the Democrats. As a currently registered (and very, very, VERY disgruntled) Republican, let me just say Arlen, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out. The Republicans are better without you.

Constitutional scholar Randy Barnett has worked his Federalism Amendment into a more complete Bill of Federalism which, like the original Bill of Rights, has ten amendments.

All of which are, in my humble opinion, badly needed today. I've taken the liberty of transcribing the PDF document into plain text, which you can view by clicking the Read More below (or, if you've come to this post's direct link, it immediately follows).

All typos are my fault . . . (even those that aren't really--I tried to reproduce the entire PDF faithfully.)

But Democrats are worse--if you're talking about putting our nation into a debt hole we may not be able to crawl out of, that is.

Via Powerline

If you voted for Obama, or for a victorious Democratic House or Senate candidate, you, personally, are responsible for this. Not the politicians. Not the media. Not the bloggers. Not the spin-meisters.

You are responsible.

A hard word, isn't it? Responsible.

So, what are you going to do to fix this? I mean, besides tax everything that moves and most things that don't. Time to sober up, don't you think?

So says a report from the National Academies of Science and Engineering:

Although some of the report's recommendations to enhance hurricane preparedness have been widely acknowledged for years, many have not been adequately implemented, said the committee that wrote the report. For instance, levees and floodwalls should be viewed as a way to reduce risks from hurricanes and storm surges, not as measures that completely eliminate risk. As with any structure built to protect against flooding, the New Orleans hurricane-protection system promoted a false sense of security that areas behind the structures were absolutely safe for habitation and development, the report says. Unfortunately, there are substantial risks that never were adequately communicated to the public and undue optimism that the 350-mile structure network could provide reliable flood protection, the committee noted.

Comprehensive flood planning and risk management should be based on a combination of structural and nonstructural measures, including the option of voluntary relocations, floodproofing and elevation of structures, and evacuation, the committee urged. Rebuilding the New Orleans area and its hurricane-protection system to its pre-Katrina state would leave the city and its inhabitants vulnerable to similar disasters. Instead, settlement in areas most vulnerable to flooding should be discouraged, and some consideration should be given to new designs of the New Orleans metro hurricane-protection system. As part of the future design, relocation of some structures and residents would help improve public safety and reduce flood damages.

Emphasis mine. To translate from Engineerish to English: Don't rebuild New Orleans, you morons. It's below sea level. That means you can't stop it from flooding. That means that rebuilding in areas that are going to flood again is a waste of money and time.

Displaying a tone-deafness which is jaw-dropping even for me, an unrepentant cynic about such things, the Obama administration somehow decided it would be an absolutely FINE idea to fly one of their Air Force One planes (a Boeing 747--a BIG jet) with a fighter escort, low and slow over lower Manhattan in New York City. It made not one, not two, but three passes over Manhattan.

For a f'ing photo op.

And they told the NYC authorities to keep it secret.

Pardon my language, but Jesus H. F. Christ on a popsicle stick!

Our government is entirely, 100%, completely composed of utter, complete morons. Is there not one single intelligent person above GS-6 in Federal service with sufficient wit to think that New Yorkers might be just a teensy bit apprehensive about a big honking airliner flying low and slow near the site of the former World Trade Center? One person? Just one?

I didn't think they could top the hysterical, over the top panic about swine flu. (Oh, yeah, we're all gonna die.) But I was wrong.

What stupid thing can these morons do next? We've already let these pinheads take over the automotive and finance industries in the U.S.--literally.

Hey, I've got a great idea! Let's let these dimwits run our entire medical system! And destroy what's left of our economy, in order to save us from bogus global warming. Golly, those sound like swell ideas. What could possibly go wrong?

I hope something changes soon. But we're stuck with this sorry excuse of a national government for the next three and a half years. They'll be long ones.

Universal health insurance, that is--so says researcher Richard Kronick, from UC San Diego:

“the evidence we have concerning the relationship between lack of insurance and mortality is not very good, and a reasonable reading of that evidence is that the number of deaths in the United States probably wouldn’t change a lot if everybody gets health insurance.”

One more for the very, very large file of "things that sound good but are simply not true."

The Taliban are sixty miles outside Pakistan's capital, Islamabad. Bill Roggio writes at The Long War Journal:

"If the Taliban continue to move at this pace, they will soon be knocking at the doors of Islamabad as the Margala Hills seem to be the only hurdle in their march towards the federal capital," Fazl said, according to a report in The News. "After occupying Buner, they have reached Kala Dhaka and may also be taking over the water reservoir of the Tarbela Dam."

Pakistan has reportedly rushed paramilitary forces into Buner today, but some units were attacked by the Taliban stationed there. Six platoons of Frontier Constabulary forces were sent into Buner to secure government buildings. One policeman was reported killed after the Taliban ambushed a convoy, The Associated Press reported. The military claimed the Taliban only control 25 percent of Buner, but Taliban fighters have been reported in all of the major regions in the district.

The Taliban advance on Mansehra and Haripur takes place at the same time they are moving on the districts of Swabi, Mardan, and Malakand. The takeover of these five districts would essentially cement the Taliban's control of the province.

The Taliban takeover of Haripur would put the Taliban on the doorstep of Islamabad and would also put two major nuclear facilities at risk.

Haripur borders the Margala Hills, a region in the Islamabad Capital Territory. Haripur also borders the Punjab districts of Attock and Rawalpindi.

This is bad. Really bad. Really, really bad.