SUBPRIME SIX UPDATE: Questions for Kent Conrad.

Plus, more from Connecticut on Christopher Dodd: "This scandal has legs." Again, it seems that local media are paying more attention to this story than the big national publications. Further proof: The ol' Favor Game pops up in Congress. "So here's a member of the Senate Finance Committee, who should have been helping draft rules against Countrywide's fast-and-loose playing with 'subprime' home loans — behavior contributing to the housing-mortgage crisis — owing favors to the company's boss."

GEORGE CARLIN forgot the Rule Of Three.

NANCY PELOSI, victim of sexism: "It’s fair to say, I think, that the Democratic Party can be characterized as a collection of groups that perceive themselves as being victims." Racism trumps sexism, though, as we've seen.

MIKE O'SHEA: So Let's Say Justice Scalia Writes D.C. v. Heller ...

APPEALING TO BUDGET VACATIONERS AND DISASTER-PREPAREDNESS ENTHUSIASTS ALIKE: A camping equipment sale.

LAYERS OF FACT-CHECKERS AND EDITORS at work in Wisconsin.

THE IRAN LOBBY and its influence. Which, happily, seems limited to left-wing blogs.

JONATHAN ADLER: "The federal government backs a program creating moral hazards and encouraging risky home loans. Why am I not surprised?"

ADVICE TO REPUBLICANS: Don't make it worse than it is.

Plus this: "Hint: Republicans should stay away from country club analogies."

"A ONE-TIME SEAL FOR A ONE-TIME EVENT." Okay.

But Mickey Kaus won't stand for it: "Save the Seal!"

A SECOND AMENDMENT FREEDOM RALLY IN CHICAGO, scheduled for July 11.

HO HUM, A GOVERNMENT SUCCESS STORY:

Much of the Mississippi River Valley is now underwater, and the Associated Press reports from East St. Louis, Ill., that FEMA's performance has been exemplary . . . . Now, we'd like to see some investigative reporting into the differences between the Gulf Coast in 2005 and the Upper Midwest in '08. We're not prepared to accept on FEMA's say-so that its leaders learned the lessons of Katrina and everything works now. It's possible that Katrina was simply a harder-to-manage challenge because it was such a massive storm and because it hit an area (especially New Orleans and Louisiana) with weak social structures and poor government.

Either way, though, the claims that Bush deliberately neglected disaster preparedness have been disproved. If the Katrina-era problems have been remedied, then the Bush administration's shortcomings were real but inadvertent. If not, then FEMA always was up to the task of an ordinary-scale disaster, and those who expected better of it in Katrina were unrealistic.

Or, possibly, things in New Orleans weren't as bad as the media claimed at the time.

A FOOD SCARE REALITY CHECK.

Plus, healthier livestock, with nanotechnology.

Subscribe with an RSS reader Older News Archive Add news to your web site