MORE TEA PARTY PICS HERE. And still more, here.

THE OBAMA WHITE HOUSE DROPS “TORTURE” FROM ITS LEXICON, and Tom Maguire comments.

UPDATE: Audio: Fred Thompson comments. He wants members of Congress to testify under oath on what they approved.

QUESTION: With Obama talking about going after DoJ lawyers for torture memos, how many senior government lawyers and officials are currently worried that someone will go after them for things they’re doing on TARP and other bailout operations that may later turn out to be illegal?

UPDATE: Related: Maybe Jay Bybee and Jamie Gorelick Should Be In The Dock Together.

CIA: We stand behind our actions — and the results. They waged a leak-war against Bush and crippled him. Will Obama do better?

HUFFINGTON POST: Jeanine Garafolo on Racism — Why She is Way off Base.

ROGER SIMON: Durban II Diary – Part 4: The UN folds its cards. “For now the Durban II Conference is a fiasco, the UN’s inverted human rights campaign at bay.” It’s because they knew Roger was on the scene. . . .

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, we’d have rampant domestic spying. And they were right! “Two FBI workers are accused of using surveillance equipment to spy on teenage girls as they undressed and tried on prom gowns at a charity event at a West Virginia mall.”

BRIAN DOHERTY: The Clandestine War Over the Food Safety Modernization Act: Is the day coming when even your home garden will be against the law? Tar. Feathers.

AVIAN FLU CASES IN EGYPT raise alarms.

THE UPS AND DOWNS OF money-saving recipes.

A LIST OF “Future-Proof Jobs.”

MODERN LIFE IS BROKEN?

THE COMING OF the Fourth American Republic?

A SMALL CIVIL RIGHTS VICTORY IN TENNESSEE: “The House voted Monday night to allow people with handgun carry permits to take their weapons into state parks . . . . The House also approved a bill that declares the guns of Tennesseans cannot be seized during periods of martial rule. All three bills now go to the Senate, where Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey has predicted they also will win approval.”

JOHN TIERNEY: Use Energy, Get Rich, and Save The Planet: “The richer everyone gets, the greener the planet will be in the long run. . . . As their wealth grows, people consume more energy, but they move to more efficient and cleaner sources — from wood to coal and oil, and then to natural gas and nuclear power, progressively emitting less carbon per unit of energy. This global decarbonization trend has been proceeding at a remarkably steady rate since 1850, according to Jesse Ausubel of Rockefeller University and Paul Waggoner of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station.”

DOES FRUCTOSE SWEETENING increase abdominal fat?

HOW TO MAKE YOUR CAR THEFT-PROOF: A paint job that no self-respecting thief would be caught dead in.

REVIEWING THE REVIEWERS: A roundup of book reviews from all over.

REASON TV: What’s next for the “hugely popular” Tea Party movement.

Plus, from Forbes, Tea Party Economics.

AERODYNAMICS ON LAND: Aiming For 800 MPH.

TAXPROF: Affirmative Action “Mismatch” at Duke.

MOE LANE LOOKS AT March political fundraising numbers. “Both Democrats and Republicans will find good things to see in these numbers; while normal people will… probably wonder why anybody went through the trouble.”

PROFILES IN COURAGE.

DETROIT COUNCILMAN WALKS AWAY FROM HIS MORTGAGE:

It was their dream home, a two-story, four-bedroom colonial in one of Detroit’s nicest and most stable neighborhoods.

But then, one day in December, City Councilman Kwame Kenyatta and his wife packed up their belongings, locked the doors, mailed in the keys and walked away – adding another vacant house to the thousands in a city hard hit by the nation’s mortgage crisis.

“We’re already underwater when it comes to what we’re paying on the house versus what the house is worth,” Kenyatta said.

Around the country, the practice, sometimes referred to as “mortgage walking” or “jingle mail,” appears to be growing. But for Kenyatta, the decision could do more than hurt his credit rating.

It could damage his bid for mayor of Detroit this summer, particularly since he has been one of the city’s most vocal supporters of measures to improve neighborhoods and clean up blight.

One hopes. (Via NewsAlert).

AT SAMIZDATA: “If all those ‘libertarians’ who dallied with The Community Organiser had been reading our own Paul Marks, who was onto Mr Obama’s agenda months ago, they’d have saved themselves a lot of buyer’s remorse.”