RICHARD EPSTEIN on the Boumediene decision. “This 5-4 decision was correct.”

HEH: “As the story of Obama’s ‘presidential’ seal reminds us, few messiahs are modest men. Nevertheless, as kitsch goes, the design itself is not too bad. Nice typeface! I await his redesign of the uniforms of the White House guard with anticipation.”

QUICK, REPORT HIM TO A KANGAROO COURT: Terror leader gets visa to speak in Canada.

MARK SHIELDS ON OBAMA’S CAMPAIGN-FINANCE FLIPFLOP:

It was a flip-flop of epic proportions. It was one that he could not rationalize or justify. His video was unconvincing. He looked like someone who was being kept as a hostage somewhere he was so absolutely unconvincing in it. It could not have passed a polygraph test.

Is it just me, or does it seem as if the press is beginning to think that all this hope-and-change talk may have just been a sham? Much more here.

UPDATE: Obama alienates the editors.

YOUSSEF IBRAHIM: “Radical Islam is in conflict with America — and neither Barack Obama nor anyone else will change that.”

BILL STUNTZ ON secular universities and evangelical Christians.

IN THE MAIL: From Peter Schuck and James Q. Wilson: Understanding America: The Anatomy of an Exceptional Nation.

RACHEL LUCAS ON THE IMPORTANCE of the unique hidden gusset.

MEGAN MCARDLE: “Can a Barack Obama administration sit by while this happens? The liberals who think it can have spent far too much time in the Bat Cave telling each other that justice will soon be restored to the universe. Seizing US officials and trying them for war crimes will be perceived by most of the American public as an act of war. An Obama administration that became complicit in this would find itself wistfully hoping that they could, perhaps someday, get their approval ratings up to those enjoyed in the later Dubya years.”

A cynic would take a leaf from the Muslim terrorists: Saw a few heads off on the Internet, and all will be forgiven. It’s not as if these people possess the courage of their convictions when the going gets tough; we’ve seen that demonstrated over and over again.

HADITHA: A mass character assassination.

ROGER KIMBALL ON sausages, enlightenment, and “critical thinking.”

WELL, THIS IS COMFORTING: “Manhattan prosecutors are investigating whether the leading concrete testing company in the New York area, which has been hired to measure and analyze the strength of the concrete poured at some of the biggest construction projects in the city, failed to do some tests and falsified others, officials involved in the inquiry said on Friday.”

GOOD NEWS: Last Surge Brigade Readies to Return Home After Success in Iraq.

Could be time for the pivot!

THIS SEEMS LIKE GOOD NEWS: Three senior Mahdi Army commanders captured in Baghdad, Hillah. Bill Roggio has more at the link.

OBAMA TRIANGULATES ON FISA.

GOOGLEBOMB ATTACKS on John McCain.

RAND SIMBERG: “NASA’s plans for the future look like the same plans that have made the agency a bureaucratic dinosaur.”

THEOPHOBIA? “I think the data confirm my theory that most academics are not hostile to religion as such, but merely to those religious groups that they perceive (for the most part correctly) as politically conservative.”

WELL, THERE’S A SURPRISE: Sharpton Lawyers Up in Tax Probe.

HMM: BofA-Scripted Bank Bailout Looks Awfully Similar to Dodd-Drafted Housing Bill.

ISN’T THIS A BIT PREMATURE? Obama already has own Presidential Seal.

It’s that oozing sense of entitlement again.

UPDATE: Claiming that Obama’s Great Seal somehow breaks the law seems like a stretch to me — unless you’re talking about the laws of good taste.

HANNA ROSIN: “Why is crime rising in so many American cities? The answer implicates one of the most celebrated antipoverty programs of recent decades. . . . It’s difficult to contemplate solutions to this problem when so few politicians, civil servants, and academics seem willing to talk about it—or even to admit that it exists.”

QUESTION: Could a defibrillator have saved Tim Russert? “NBC News has declined to comment on whether an automated external defibrillator, or A.E.D., was nearby at the time of Mr. Russert’s collapse or why a defibrillator wasn’t immediately used.” Huh. Why keep mum?

And this is clearly right: “One of the many lessons from Mr. Russert’s death is that everybody should find out whether their building has a portable defibrillator and where it is located, and then learn how to use it.” And public buildings should routinely be equipped with these. They’re not very expensive.

More background in this post, including a report on a kid who was saved by an AED.

A LOOK AT Coldplay and intellectual property. The catchy term “coldplagiarism,” however, does not appear.