FRIED CHICKEN: A Love Story.

WHY ARE CANADIAN BANKS DOING BETTER? It’s not tighter regulation. “It’s that the Canadian bankers are, well, Canadian. They’re very conservative. And they don’t trust easy money.”

BEST WESTERN MOCKS THE SENATE:

TONIGHT ON 20/20, John Stossel on tough subjects “you can’t even talk about.”

SUING FOR GUN PERMITS, in California.

POLITICS AND SCAPEGOATING.

DANIEL STERN: Drive Like A Grownup.

MICHAEL BARONE: Steve Rattner and ‘Gangster Government’.

UPDATE: Apparently, Rattner’s “gangster” tactics have worked. Well, in a lawless environment, gangster tactics often do.

BUSINESS INSIDER: Media Still Covering Up The $400 Billion Fannie And Freddie Scandal.

This morning, Fannie Mae (FNM) announced that it had lost another $23 billion in the quarter, and would have to call down $19 billion more in taxpayer support. It also said that it would face losses as far as the eye can see.

Do you know how much we’ve committed to backstopping Fannie and its partner-in-crime Freddie Mac (FRE)? $400 BILLION! Back in February that was doubled from the original $200 billion.

But the news of the quarterly loss is getting hardly any attention.

Doesn’t fit the narrative.

HOPE AND CHANGE! Gov’t sticks with Bush-era polar bear rule. “The Obama administration on Friday let stand a Bush-era regulation that limits protection of the polar bear from global warming, saying that a law protecting endangered species shouldn’t be used to take on the much broader issue of climate change.”

But wait, I thought the Bushies were just tools of Big Oil who hated polar bears.

Apparently, I wasn’t alone: Why Does President Obama Hate The Polar Bears?

PAUL CASSELL: Another big DoJ Loss: “The Justice Department just suffered a huge loss up in federal court in Montana. The jury just returned not guilty verdicts on all counts as to all defendants in the W.R. Grace environmental prosecution, which alleged that the company and some of its top corporate officers had knowingly endangered the residents of Libby, Montana through release of asbestos.”

LARRY KUDLOW: “This whole Friedman episode looks like yet another unfortunate example in a long line of growing TARP corruption. Make no mistake: TARP is a corrosive, corrupting, and demoralizing influence on our banks and the rest of the economy. . . . It is time we all opened our eyes to the mess before us. Enough already. We can do much better.”

NEW YORK TIMES: Pelosi Criticized Over Interrogation Briefings.

STAR TREK PHYSICS, explained.

CAR LUST: Ride, Pontiac, Ride. With video.

FIXING THE AMERICAN ECONOMY: A straightforward solution.

VIDEO: It Wasn’t Just Pelosi. “The leak clearly shows that some in the CIA have resolved not to take the heat for waterboarding all by themselves, and shows what a miscalculation Obama made by releasing the legal memos. Until that time, the CIA appeared content to let people talk about Bush-era tactics in academic terms, especially since the agency had dropped the procedures in question several years earlier. After the release of the OLC memos prompted talk of prosecutions, that all changed, and now Obama knows how Bush felt when the CIA decided to leak damaging information to the press.”

UPDATE: TPM Muckraker: Docs Show Rockefeller Was Briefed On “How The Water Board Was Used.”

Plus, Josh Gerstein: 40 Hill briefings on interrogations disclosed.

Also, from Greg Sargent: Hoekstra’s Office: He’s Seen Documents That Prove Pelosi Was Briefed On Waterboarding.

Hoekstra spokesperson Jamal Ware says that Hoekstra is now seeking the release of the memos and notes that comprised the basis of the documents that came out today that claimed Dems had been briefed on enhanced interrogation techniques.

“He has seen documents that would clarify exactly what the Speaker was briefed on,” Ware tells me, “including whether she was briefed on all enhanced interrogation techniques that had been used.”

Asked if those techniques included waterboarding, Ware replied: “Yes.”

That ups the ante considerably.

Indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Moe Lane watches the moral-superiority bubble deflate.

And Jules Crittenden comments. “OK, I think we’re ready to start those torture prosecutions.”

MORE: The Hill: Hoekstra considers hearings on Pelosi, interrogations.

STILL MORE: Allah is pitiless: “Two defenses of Pelosi’s lies circulating in the nutrootsphere today, one dumber than the other. . . . Anyway, they wanted ‘truth’ and now they’ve got it.”

MICHAEL YON: Sad News from Borneo.

HOPE AND CHANGE: Australia Prepares for U.S. Decline.

TODAY REALLY IS F.A. HAYEK’S BIRTHDAY.

OBAMA WHITE HOUSE PREPARING A Stonewall 40th Anniversary proclamation. When I teach about the Stonewall riot in Constitutional Law, many students find that era hard to believe.

ANTI-ANGIOGENESIS DRUGS not looking as promising as hoped. But maybe producing some useful insights.

AT FUTURE PUNDIT, living like a refugee. Plus this: “The local government web sites lag for many hours. They should have a map page well advertised which instantly shows evacuation map changes. That map page should have notes on which neighborhoods can only be entered on foot and which you can drive into. Also spoken statements about evacuation areas should not say a single street name by itself. Yet I heard such statements yesterday. Neighbors were coming by asking “does the new evacuation order apply to us?” I couldn’t figure it out either. The Public Information Officers should have canned formats in which they release information that are structured so that they communicate in intelligible ways. Some can’t ad lib worth squat. The ambiguity wasn’t cleared until when police cruised by saying ‘you are in imminent danger’ and other words to that effect.”

CATO UNBOUND: Declan McCullagh on Larry Lessig.

MICHAEL SILENCE: Is The Public Being Misled On Economic News?