BIG BROTHER, FRUSTRATED: Arizona Judge Throws Out Political Arrest Based on Photo Ticket.

ROBERT GIBBS’ ANSWER: They’re not laughing at us, they’re laughing with us! “One of Barack Obama’s campaign arguments was that he was going to make us respected in the world. Let’s review what we’ve got: North Korea firing missiles, Hugo Chavez calling us socialist, no one willing to buy US Treasury bonds, and Chinese students laughing at our Treasury Secretary.”

WELL, GOOD: Carbon Nanotubes Make Aluminum as Hard as Steel But One Third the Weight.

UPDATE: A reader emails: “Am I the first to think Rearden Metal when I read this? Probably not: Reardon Metal can be updated to be carbon nanotubes or something like that rather than a new alloy, but it would still be pretty much the same as a story element.“

THE CRIMINAL-JUSTICE SYSTEM AT WORK: Prisoners Run Gangs, Plan Escapes and Even Order Hits With Smuggled Cellphones.

CAR LUST: The 1962 Rambler American 400 Convertible. Lovely car. But where’s the iPod jack?

THE HOUSTON TEA PARTY FOLKS plan to protest Nancy Pelosi’s visit on Friday.

HEH: “When Holder says ‘there are those’ who apparently slight civil liberties through arguments for national security, he might seem to be referencing a prior manifestation of none other than one Eric Holder.”

DON’T BLAME YOURSELF: Homeowner disagrees with euthanasia of bear.

A West Knoxville woman said Sunday that she may never forgive herself for the death of a black bear that was euthanized after bursting into her home.

Jennifer Stephens, a veterinarian, believes she is partly to blame for the series of events that led to the animal’s capture and death over the weekend because she’d left food outside her house for a pair of stray cats. The bear – which burst through Stephens’ front glass door after it was frightened by a neighborhood dog Wednesday night – was captured about three miles from her house on Renford Road late Saturday and subsequently euthanized.

Just before the bear came into her living room last week, Stephens was watching the bear through her glass door as it fed from the cat food she’d placed on the front porch.

Thoughts: (1) There are bears roaming West Knoxville? Actually, I’d heard that, but . . . (2) Any bear that “bursts” into my house risks becoming a rug. (3) There shouldn’t be bears roaming our suburban neighborhoods. Deadly animals and human settlements don’t mix. David Baron, call your office! And Dr. Stephens, and others who are concerned about the bear, should read his book.

SARAH PALIN ON THE STIMULUS: Told ya so.

FIGHTING INFLAMMATION with Omega-3 fish oils.

SUPREME COURT DECIDES BOYLE V. UNITED STATES: The White Collar Crime Blog has the scoop.

AN INTERVIEW WITH MATTHEW CRAWFORD, author of Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into The Value of Work.

NO WONDER THEY NEED A BAILOUT: GM marketing boss Mark LaNeve apparently unaware that diesel is now cheaper than gas. I’m sure all that taxpayer money will be spent well.

THE POLITICS OF Pigs’ Feet.

AN OBAMA BETRAYAL on “don’t ask, don’t tell?”

ANN ALTHOUSE OFFERS A Carla Bruni / Michelle Obama photo caption contest. Somehow, I’m reminded of this one.

IN THE MAIL: From Richard Brookhiser, Right Time, Right Place: Coming of Age with William F. Buckley Jr. and the Conservative Movement.

KEITH HENNESSEY: Understanding the Kennedy Health Care Bill.

CHRIS DODD UPDATE: “Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) seems to attract friends who, in turn, attract scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission.”

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION:

Rep. Barney Frank has already been leaning on GM to favor his Massachusetts district, and the first round of dealer closings prompted an outcry about favoritism.

Democrats already got their first case of bailout indigestion over the AIG bonuses in March. Authorized in the stimulus bill, the bonuses have pushed Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., to the brink of electoral defeat and have left simmering resentments in their wake.

With so many banks and insurance companies now part of the $700 billion bailout family, the AIG pratfall was more likely foreshadowing than culmination.

Meanwhile, Democrats are dragging their feet on dealing with congressmen like John Murtha, D-Pa., [Pete] Visclosky, D-Ind., and Jim Moran, D-Va., who were the biggest recipients of campaign cash from the PMA defense lobbying firm at the center of a pay-to-play investigation. Last week, House leaders caved a bit to Republican pressure by promising to make public the work of the Ethics Committee on the issue, but they again blocked a move for a special investigation.

Rather than learning from the Republicans’ mistakes and rooting out wrongdoing by wayward party members, House Democrats are still looking to protect their own. When the FBI finishes its work on PMA, Speaker Nancy Pelosi will regret the see-no-evil strategy.

I think that’s right.

A ROUNDUP OF ECONOMIC NEWS FROM STEPHEN GREEN: The Grand Unification Theory of Sucking.

Let’s pretend for a moment that, god forbid, you break your arm. And somehow you end up with a team of doctors all trained at Obama University. As you lie there on the table in the ER, one doctor treats your arm by banging on the unbroken one with a ball-peen hammer. The second doctor takes the unusual course of setting your hair on fire. And the third one uses leaches.

Undeterred by your arm’s stubborn refusal to set, soon the doctors start blaming one another. And even though all of them are doing nothing but compounding your injury, none will take any blame. In fact, the louder you scream, the harder they go to work on you.

That, apparently, is what’s going on in the West Wing these days. Our economy is being managed by Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, and Dr. Howard.

Read the whole thing.

MICHAEL SCHRAGE WRITES, “Funny that this is a story now.”

DENVER — The thick-muscled man with close-cropped hair who called himself Rick Duncan seemed right out of central casting as a prop for a Democratic candidate running against Bush administration policies last fall. A former Marine Corps captain who suffered brain trauma from a roadside bomb in Iraq and was at the Pentagon during the Sept. 11 attacks. An advocate for veterans rights who opposed the war. An Annapolis graduate who was proudly gay. With his gold-plated credentials, he commanded the respect and attention of not just politicians, but also police chiefs, reporters and veterans advocates for the better part of two years.

Yet, except for his first name, virtually none of his story was true. In reality, he was Richard G. Strandlof, a charismatic drifter with a history of mental illness and petty crimes who had moved from Montana to Nevada to Colorado, assuming different names and identities along the way.

They were too busy investigating Joe The Plumber back during the election. You’d think this would have been a tipoff, though: “He claimed to have lost a finger, but had 10 digits.” Note, however, the way the NYT story executes damage-control as it goes.

ADDRESSING PERVASIVE SURVEILLANCE at the Open Source Sensing Initiative. “This is an open source-style project with the goal of bringing the benefits of a bottom-up, decentralized approach to sensing for security and environmental purposes. The intent of the project is to take advantage of advances in sensing to improve both security and the environment, while preserving — even strengthening — privacy, freedom, and civil liberties.”

This seems consistent with some thoughts of mine, and — more significantly — David Brin’s.

Plus, the spread of cop-car cameras.

DARREN HUTCHINSON: Plagues and Famine Next? Gingrich and Huckabee Warn of Paganism, Abortion, and Same-Sex Marriage. Speaking of which, I always thought the Plague Of Frogs was the lamest of the Old Testament plagues. I mean, all you need is a little butter and garlic and it goes from “plague” to delicious!

Meanwhile, does this mean it’s 2005 all over again? How did that work out? . . . .

A MEDIA BUSINESS MODEL THAT WON’T WORK: Pricing opinions as facts.

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