A GOOD DAY FOR NEW JERSEY, a bad day for back-alley bikini waxers.

ROLL CALL: GOP Tying A.I.G. to Reid: “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) very active role in cobbling together the $787 billion economic stimulus package last month is proving to be fresh fodder for Republicans hoping to strip him of his seat in 2010.”

GOOD ADVICE: Get twice as much from landscaping by adding fruits and vegetables.

TOBY HARNDEN: Top 10 gaffes by Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

ANNOUNCING THE Hugo Award finalists.

ARE SENATOR DODD’S A.I.G. ACTIONS IMPEACHABLE? Since Senators can’t be impeached, no. And I doubt the Senate will vote to expel him — the actual remedy — as they cover for their own. Still, it looks bad

But there’s this: Congressional Report: Countrywide Bent Loan Rules For Dodd:

An executive at mortgage giant Countrywide Financial overrode the company’s loan-writing policies to give a discount to Sen. Christopher Dodd, the powerful chairman of the Senate banking committee, according to an internal Countrywide document turned over to congressional investigators and obtained by The Courant.

And this: Dodd’s Political Stock Tumbles in Connecticut:

As head of the banking panel, Dodd, 64, has become a convenient target for voter anger over the economic crisis. . . . Some of the worst blows came amid the furor over $165 million in bonuses American International Group Inc. paid some of its employees while receiving billions of dollars in federal bailout money. After first denying it, Dodd admitted he agreed to a request by Treasury Department officials to dilute an executive bonus restriction in the big economic stimulus bill that Congress passed last month. The change to Dodd’s amendment allowed AIG to hand out the bonuses and sparked a blame game between Dodd and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Dodd was guarded Thursday when asked about Geithner. . . . He’s also under investigation by a Senate ethics panel for mortgages he got from Countrywide Financial Corp., the big lending company at the center of the mortgage crisis.

Then there’s the whole Irish “cottage” story, and more . . . .

UPDATE: A.I.G. Bonus Mystery Solved!

DESPITE? White House: Agenda on track despite worsening deficits.

CONYERS SUGGESTS PROBE OF ACORN:

In an startling partisan shift, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. on Thursday proposed holding hearings on claims the liberal activist group ACORN engaged in a pattern of crimes ranging from voter fraud to a mob-style “protection” racket.

Mr. Conyers, Michigan Democrat and fierce partisan, suggested a congressional probe after scathing testimony about the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) during a hearing on various voting issues related to the 2008 presidential election.

And yet Obama wants to give ACORN a role in the census . . . .

DEATH OF THE MEXICAN GUN CANARD?

Testimony from law enforcement officials concludes that, generally, military hardware is not flowing into Mexico from the United States. We gun nuts have been saying that for years. More testimony here. The experts on the panel do not conclude that more gun control is the answer.

Don’t expect this to change the party line.

HEH: Special Olympics bowler: I can beat the president!

JOSEPH NOCERA: “This week, the body politic ran off the rails.” Worst political class ever. And they started from a low baseline.

CAR LUST: “The Moslem Corvette.”

HOPE AND CHANGE: CBO: US deficit ballooning to record $1.7 trillion.

UPDATE: The Next Bubble: Obama’s Budget Deficit.

“ARE WE A BANANA REPUBLIC?” Some people would like that.

UPDATE: Comandante Obama?

MORE ON the JournoList scandal. Also, an interesting post from Matt Welch. “The real fun in this story, though, comes in the pomposity of the participants.” Yes, they’ve become the stuffed-shirts they affected to despise, and they’ve done so with such rapidity that it suggests this was the goal all along . . .

REMEMBERING legendary moonshiner Popcorn Sutton.

WHAT TO CONSIDER when buying a “green” car.

FROM CHRIS DODD: “An impossibly lame excuse. It’s his job to know. He holds a public trust. Which he doesn’t deserve.”

AN IMPORTANT QUESTION FROM TAM: How come when I put my AmEx bill on my Visa, it’s stupid, but when the government does it, it’s stimulus?

GALLUP: Support for Nuclear Energy Hits New High. “A majority of Americans have been supportive of the use of nuclear energy in the United States in recent years, but this year’s Gallup Environment Poll finds new high levels of support, with 59% favoring its use, including 27% who strongly favor it.” It’s greenhouse-friendly!

GREAT COMMUNICATOR: Now, Maria Shriver chastises Obama for Special Olympics ‘joke’.

SPECULIST COBLOGGER MICHAEL SARGENT has died.

THE COUNTRY’S IN the very best of hands.

R.I.P.: Des Newton: Ship Bottler.

LOOKING AT the new Lords Of Finance.