APOLLO XI REMINISCENCES At Cosmic Log.

MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT where Human Rights Watch gets its money.

BARBARA BOXER AND BLACK PEOPLE: Breitbart TV interviews Harry Alford.

PJTV: Socialized Medicine Through The Eyes Of A Recipient.

If you’ve got thoughts on this subject, you should probably contact your Senators and Representative at (202) 224-3121 — or, better yet, call their local office.

MICKEY KAUS: Smug self-styled wonks will kill health care yet. “WaPo’s Ezra Klein decrees ‘rules’ for those who would use the CBO’s damning analysis ‘against the existing health-care reform proposals’–they ‘must,’ he says, endorse some combination of cost-cutting proposals from a list he provides. Huh? Even as mock hubris (and it’s hard to tell) this makes no sense. Who said opponents have to be for more cost-cutting? Why can’t Republicans say to Dems a) You said your plans would bend the cost curve down. Instead they increase costs. The status quo would be better than your plans. Vote no. b) You said your plans would bend the cost curve down. Instead they increase costs. Why should we believe anything else you say? … That isn’t what I would say, but it’s not an illogical or inappropriate response.” Plus, “Klein goes on, of course, to re-endorse the very treatment-restricting form of cost-cutting that is scaring people away from the Dem plans.”

STEVE CHAPMAN:

Some statements are inherently unbelievable. Such as: “I am an official of the government of Nigeria, and I would like to deposit $60 million in your bank account.” Or: “I’m Barry Bonds, and I thought it was flaxseed oil.” And this new one: “I’m Barack Obama, and I favor more competition in health insurance.” That, however, is the claim behind his support of a government-run health insurance plan to give consumers one more choice. The president says a “public option” would improve the functioning of the market because it would “force the insurance companies to compete and keep them honest.”

Read the whole thing.

LIES, INTIMIDATION, AND BANK OF AMERICA.

MORE ON the Amtrak Inspector General scandal.

MICHAEL MOYNIHAN: Is Barbara Boxer the Orville Faubus of the Climate Committee?

TOP TEN ENDEARING HABITS OF A GEEKY SPOUSE.

MARK TAPSCOTT: Where Did All The Liberals Go?

VIDEO: Dave Kopel and Ilya Somin testify on the Sotomayor nomination.

ERIC HOLDER holding out on House Judiciary over voter intimidation?

PRIMETIME EMMY NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED.

READER MEGHAN HAMMOND SENDS: “Bomb blasts in Jakarta. Can hear the sirens from my office.”

UPDATE: More here.

TEA PARTY UPDATE: Tea Party accepts parade apology: Float won’t be ‘banned’ from future parades.

The Bristol Fourth of July Committee and the Rhode Island Tea Party put down their sabers Wednesday, a week after a phone call between two Bristol residents unleashed a torrent of nationwide anger upon this town and the state of Rhode Island.

The Tea Party accepted an apology from Fourth of July committee chairman Dave Burns, and assurance that the citizens activist group has not been banned from future July 4 parades. The Fourth of July Committee also made it clear that their Float Committee chairman, Jim Tavares, had no authority to “ban” the Tea Party when he called float organizer and Bristol resident Marina Peterson last Wednesday, July 8.

I suspect that the “torrent of nationwide anger” had something to do with the apology.

HEALTHCARE “REFORM:” The Cure That Makes the Disease Worse.

A DOLLAR A PAGEVIEW, THAT’S ALL I ASK: Financial Times editor says most news websites will charge within a year. Heck, a penny a pageview would be awesome. . . .

HOPE AND CHANGE: Obama’s pals escape transparency rules.

BILL QUICK: “While it is conceivable that Palin could cobble together a credible Perot-style run as an Indy, that same support, properly channeled, could give her effective control of the GOP, and permit her to renovate that pile of rubble as a new home for conservative principles.”

CHARLES HILL: The People’s Republic of China is an empire desperately trying to make the world think it’s a state.

STILL PRESSING FOR OPEN MEETINGS, in Quincy, Illinois.

TEA PARTY-BASHER SUSAN ROESGEN is out at CNN.

UPDATE: More here.

HOPE AND CHANGE SAME! Administration Bridles at Bar on Contractors. “The Obama administration has objected to a provision in the 2010 defense funding bill currently before the Senate that would bar the military’s use of contractors to interrogate detainees.”

So much for all that fierce moral urgency of change.

LOTS OF back-to-school markdowns. Already? Sigh.