IN THE MAIL: From Thomas Eisele, Bitter Knowledge: Learning Socratic Lessons of Disillusion and Renewal.

MY POPULAR MECHANICS COLUMN THIS MONTH: The Singularity Is Coming: Now What?

SILICON GRAFFITI: The Pinchurian Candidate.

EXAMINER: Dirty Money Watch: Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.

POLITICO: Dems Alarmed As Independents Bolt Party. “Following serious setbacks with independents in off-year elections earlier this month, White House officials attributed the defeats to local factors and said President Barack Obama sees no need to reposition his own image or the Democratic message. Since then, however, a flurry of new polls makes clear that Democrats are facing deeper problems with independents—the swing voters who swung dramatically toward the party in 2006 and 2008 but who now are registering deep unease with the amount of spending and debt called for under Obama’s agenda in an era of one-party rule in Washington.”

When you take a trillion dollars and spend it on nonexistent Congressional districts, and then want more for health care “reform,” it tends to take the bloom off the rose.

Related: Are Asian voters swinging Republican?

TRANSPARENCY! The Hill: Agencies stiff-arm GAO on info. “The investigative arm of Congress has been denied information repeatedly by various government agencies, indefinitely delaying lawmaker-requested probes, according to a letter obtained by The Hill. . . . There has always been friction between GAO and government agencies, but sources say the tension is intensifying and could lead to legal clashes between the legislative and executive branches.”

MICHAEL BARONE: Obama Bows, But The World Refuses to Bow Back.

SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER: EPA Employees Silenced for Criticizing Cap and Trade.

RON BAILEY: The Methuselah Manifesto. A report from a meeting of the life-extension movement. “Over the weekend Maximum Life Foundation president David Kekich gathered a group of scientists, entrepreneurs, and visionaries to meet for three days with the goal of developing a scientific and business strategy to make extreme human life extension a real possibility within a couple of decades. Kekich dubbed the effort the Manhattan Beach Project.”

THE MOST DANGEROUS PLACE ON EARTH? A JOE BIDEN MOTORCADE, APPARENTLY.

STAR-TRIBUNE: Pawlenty Criticizes Recovery.Gov. That whole thing has been a debacle of the first order. From the people who were supposed to return competence and transparency to the federal government.

UPDATE: Reader Jeff Dobbs writes: “I think we should seize the moment and field candidates in the heretofore non-existent congressional districts.”

LEFT 4 DEAD 2 IS OUT, and John Scalzi likes it.

PROGRESS IN MEDICINE: Female ‘Viagra’ boosts woman’s sex drive after failing as antidepressant.

REALCLEARPOLITICS: GOP Dark Horses for 2012.

ONE DAY, HEALTH CARE WILL BE JUST AS EFFICIENT: Postal Service Posts $3.8 Billion Loss.

TIM CAVANAUGH: Corruption, Panic and Incompetence Fueled Geithner’s Backstairs Intrigue. “Tim Geithner needs to be fired. He needs to be fired in 2008, and he needs to be fired even more in 2009. Any fair reading of the SIGTARP report leads to the conclusion that he lacks the competence, the honesty and the moral character to run the Treasury of the United States. Unfortunately it’s hard to fire a man for things he did before you hired him. But lucky for us, Geithner is providing new examples every day.”

Related: The Hill: Dodd Opponent Wants Geithner To Be Replaced.

Also, How Geithner Could Hurt Dodd.

EARTH’S CORE AT “MILLIONS OF DEGREES.” If Sarah Palin said it, it would be proof of impenetrable ignorance. But since Al Gore said it . . . it’s proof of impenetrable ignorance!

“On the other hand, he’s gotten rich, so I guess the joke is on us.”

EVEN THE DOG GETS BETTER TREATMENT: “Great, so a dog is more likely than a husband to get a gift at Christmas? The article doesn’t say but I wonder if husbands would dare give a gift to a dog rather than to their wife? If I was a guy and Fido received a gift and I got none, I would be really pissed. Would you?”

BEN SMITH ON MAX BLUMENTHAL: Playing the race card on ‘Going Rogue’.

VIDEO: Hey, who’s up for six minutes of “teabagger” jokes on MSNBC? “No, just kidding. There’s only two minutes or so of actual jokes. The other four-plus minutes are devoted to Olby taking credit for mainstreaming a sexual euphemism to degrade his political opponents. Good work; it’s important to have goals, especially when you’re the Edward R. Murrow of your generation.”

A BUNCH OF Christmas markdowns on cookware.

PHYLLIS CHESLER: Why I Am Neither Left Nor Right.

HEH: Sen. Foghorn Leghorn (D): ‘Working for TX-45. Working for YOU.’ “Twenty-four hours and they still haven’t fixed recovery.gov: remember how we got told that the new administration was going to bring us into this new, wonderful Web 2.0 reality? These guys can’t even get a database up and running properly. Heck, they can’t even be bothered to check typical search results for garbage before they take said database live.”

DAVE KOPEL ON the NRA brief in McDonald v. Chicago.

RICHARD NIXON BOWING TO MAO. Well, another one for Ann Althouse’s Obama-is-like-Nixon tag. . . .

UPDATE: “He bowed to who?”

“No, he bowed to Hu.”

“Yeah, who, that’s what I asked.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: “And at 1:32, you’ll see that I need to create a Nixon is like George H.W. Bush tag.”