KHADAFY pitches his tent in Paris.

IN THE MAIL: The new Harry Turtledove book, Opening Atlantis.

THE FBI AND IRS INVESTIGATE AL SHARPTON: “The FBI and IRS are investigating whether Sharpton improperly misstated the amount of money he raised during his 2004 White House run to illegally obtain federal matching funds, a source familiar with the probe said. . . . The feds are also looking into allegations of tax fraud, including whether Sharpton commingled funds from his nonprofit National Action Network with several of his for-profit ventures, the source said.”

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Some good news on the pork front:

It’s not just another day in the nation’s capital. At 11:30 a.m., Office of Management and Budget Director Jim Nussle and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., will throw the switch on a new landmark of government, USASpending.gov. Mandated by the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (FFATA), which was co-sponsored by Coburn and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., USASpending.gov is a searchable, Googlelike database that puts most federal spending within a few mouse clicks for every American. (Obama won’t be present at today’s activities because he is on the presidential campaign trail.) . . . .

There are innumerable reasons why the establishment of USASpending.gov is a milestone, but two of them are particularly worthy of mention. First, Coburn and Obama drew little attention when they introduced FFATA and the bill mostly flew under the radar as it progressed in Congress. But when passage became a real possibility, the Old Bulls in Congress — ever jealous of their ability to spend our tax dollars on their pet causes — used every legislative trick in the book trying to stop FFATA. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., even placed secret holds on the measure, stalling it for weeks in the Senate. But they were unmasked by Porkbusters.org, an Internet-based coalition from across the ideological spectrum.

Porkbusters.org sparked thousands of phone calls and e-mails asking senators if they were responsible for the secret holds. Stevens and Byrd soon gave up and within a few weeks Bush signed the bill into law.

Second, it may take a few years before the good effects of USASpending.gov are fully felt, but here’s fair warning to the old-school politicians who thrive on pork-barrel politics: It’s no longer just the dwindling ranks of the mainstream media covering the big spenders. Starting today, legions of citizens and professional watchdogs have access to an unprecedented amount of information and data on where tax dollars are going. And they’re all connected via the Internet. The pig roast with tax dollars as the main course is coming to an end.

Let’s hope.

UPDATE: Some background from Mark Tapscott.

THOUGHTS ON Wiki-Government.

FICKLE CONGRESS, in a different context:

For years, Congress had been pushing lenders to lend vigorously in poor neighborhoods and to avoid redlining. This effort worked–only too well.

Now Congress has discovered “predatory lending.”

Don’t trust content from Congress . . . .

UPDATE: It’s the Flounder principle at work!

A BAD PRESS DAY FOR THE DEMOCRATS:

Washington Post: Democrats Blaming Each Other For Failures

Wall Street Journal: Intraparty Feuds Dog Democrats, Stall Congress

Washington Post: Democrats Bow To Bush’s Demands In House Spending Bill

The Hill: Dems Cave On Spending

USA Today Editorial: Surge’s Success Holds Chance To Seize The Moment In Iraq – Democrats “Lost in Time”

Links rounded up by reader Amos Snead, who seems to be enjoying himself. As well he might.

TURNING HETEROSEXUALITY on and off.

JOE GANDELMAN on the Hillary / Obama drug flap: “It negates all the imagery the campaign did early on to create a more likeable Hillary Clinton.” And that’s just the beginning of his complaints. Read the whole thing.

I think it demonstrates that Hillary isn’t good under pressure. Plus, campaigning like it’s 1992:

In the 1990s, the Clinton’s mastered the art of having surrogates say things about their enemies while claiming to be aloof from it. This was James Carville’s act for pretty much the entire second term. Sid Blumenthal was employed for similar purposes.

So when the Clinton team’s top man in New Hampshire attacks Barack Obama’s past drug use (couched in the “concern” that the GOP will make an issue of it if he wins the nomination) and then “disavows” the comments I find it hard to believe anyone is buying. For months we’ve been told how disciplined this campaign is and now that the polls aren’t going her way this happens by accident? Nah-ah.

It’s a very different political — and media — environment now. Have the Clintons kept up?

UPDATE: Blowback. “Believe me, the last thing Hillary Clinton wants is for anyone on her campaign or any other campaign to start looking into drug use. Especially for Candidates shacking up in Berkeley, just down from Telegraph Avenue, in the lovin’ summer of 1971.”

IGNORANCE OF THE LAW IS NO EXCUSE. Unless, apparently, you’re in law enforcement.

SUPPORTING TORTURE, engaging in religious bigotry — hey, whatever it takes!

STEVEN LEVY liked the Kindle. The New Republic sneered at Levy. And then Ann Althouse produced this beatdown on The New Republic. Advantage: Levy. But then, it’s been a bad year for TNR.

INDEED: “I don’t need any stinkin’ resolution to honor Christmas or the Christian faith.”

IT’S NOT UP TO HARRY TURTLEDOVE STANDARDS: Eric Alterman’s alternate universe.

ANOTHER PAN FOR IOWA: “The biggest loser in today’s debate by far was PBS, whose tightly wound Des Moines Register schoolmarm moderator Carole Washburn did not allow any lengthy answers, nor meaningful exchanges between the candidates; she only wanted 30 second sound bytes, and it was an abject lesson in how NOT to conduct a debate about something as serious as choosing our next President.”

UPDATE: Heh: “What the hell was Keyes doing anywhere near real candidates? Did PBS feel the need to bring someone new in to make Ron Paul look sane? And did anyone let the Secret Service know that Keyes was going to be near the real candidates?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Piling on.

MORE: Howard Kurtz:

Okay, it was soporific. It went nowhere. It was largely a recitation of position papers. With all due respect to a newspaper editor who’s not expected to be a hotshot TV performer–and even by the standards of famous-for-being-nice Iowa–the Register’s Carolyn Washburn in Iowa seemed unfamiliar with such concepts as the followup question, or contrasting one candidate’s position with another. She even asked them for new year’s resolutions!

And what’s with refusing to ask about immigration or terrorism?

Not a great job.

GOOD NEWS: “Americans may be too fat, but at least their cholesterol is low. For the first time in nearly 50 years, the average cholesterol level for U.S. adults is in the ideal range, the government reported Wednesday.” I blame those evil drug companies. And I’m right to: “The growing use of cholesterol-lowering pills in middle-aged and older people is believed to be a key reason for the improvement, experts said. When the survey began in 1960, the average cholesterol was at 222.”

UPDATE: Or maybe we should thank McDonald’s!

TURNED ON BY FICKLE POLITICIANS:

For six years, Central Intelligence Agency officers have worried that someday the tide of post-Sept. 11 opinion would turn, and their harsh treatment of prisoners from Al Qaeda would be subjected to hostile scrutiny and possible criminal prosecution.

Now that day may have arrived, after years of shifting legal advice, searing criticism from rights groups — and no new terrorist attacks on American soil.

The Justice Department, which in 2002 gave the C.I.A. legal approval for waterboarding and other tough interrogation methods, is reviewing whether agency officials broke the law by destroying videotapes of those very methods.

The Congressional intelligence committees, whose leaders in 2002 gave at least tacit approval for the tough tactics, have voted in conference to ban all coercive techniques, and they have announced investigations of the destruction of the videotapes and the methods they documented.

“Exactly what they feared is what’s happening,” Jack Goldsmith, the former head of the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department, said of the C.I.A. officials he advised in that job. “The winds change, and the recriminations begin.”

Or as they said in Animal House, “You f*cked up. You trusted us.”

UPDATE: Attorney Fritz Schranck emails:

Seeing your Animal House reference in this post brought a smile.

In discussions with my clients and others, I often refer to this pivotal moment in film history, and call it either The Flounder Rule or The Flounder Principle, in honor of the original recipient of this comment.

It’s a highly useful explanation for a lot of stuff in life in general and government life in particular.

Indeed.

ICE VS. IEDs.

HEH: “In this election we obey the laws of thermodynamics!”

YOUTUBING Harry Reid. “Reid helped put those troops in harm’s way. He promised to fund them.”

“AXIS” TERROR ATTACK in Lebanon?

OUCH: “To bring it full circle, Keyes’s distracting presence was yet another indictment of the unworthiness of the Iowa media for the enormous role it plays in this process.”

UPDATE: Indeed. Video here.

SOME RECOMMENDED GIFTS for kids and teens.

BEST CHILDREN’S BOOKS of 2007.

POSSIBLY PRESAGING PROBLEMS FOR THE G.O.P. IN 2008: “Idaho’s senators are blocking President Bush’s nominee to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, saying the agency has become overly aggressive in enforcing gun laws.”