HAS A DECLINE IN WATER VAPOR halted global warming?

SOFTWARE DEALS of the week.

OBAMA’S GIRL CRUSH IS GONE: “At Least I Wasn’t The Edwards Girl.”

A RELIABLE READER EMAILS that Rush Limbaugh just endorsed Tea Party-backed Illinois Gubernatorial candidate Adam Andrezejewski. It may be too late to put him over the top — or not, I dunno — but that’s huge.

UPDATE: More here, including a poll that suggests it’ll still be hard for Andrezejewski to make it, but who knows?

MORE: “Holy Mackerel!”

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The Death Of Global Warming. “The movement died from two causes: bad science and bad politics.”

JOURNALISM: Times-Picayune Originally Reported that O’Keefe Was Charged with Wiretapping, Then Stealth-Corrected the Error.

A RECENT HISTORY OF political sex tapes.

AUDI IN TROUBLE with the Green Police. I’d say their sense of historical resonance is right on. . . .

SARAH PALIN endorses Rand Paul for Senate.

ANDREW BREITBART: “These decadent bastards are going down.”

MORE ON THE NEW OBAMA SPACE POLICY FROM RAND SIMBERG: “This is a huge breath of fresh air, at least so far. Which is not to say it’s perfect, but it can be a long way from that and still a huge improvement over the previous plans.”

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER ON OBAMA’S QUESTION TIME:

I do think it should be something we ought to consider institutionalizing. As we heard earlier, it is like prime minister’s question time in parliament but, of course, we don’t have a prime minister. We have a president who is half prime minister, half king.

So, instead, he gets, you know, the pomp and the circumstance of a State of the Union address, which is a one-way speech. . . . It’s supposed to be the equivalent of a throne speech in England, except that [here] it’s partisan and hectoring and argumentative.

I think it would be nice if he were to abolish the State of the Union addresses, have it as it was before Woodrow Wilson — have it written and submitted.

Instead have twice a year the meeting of the president with the opposition, not primetime but in the afternoon, like today, on television, but low-key. Have it once with opposition members of the House and once with opposition senators.

Indeed.

IN 25 YEARS, will there be a Papal Statement On Robots?

JIM GERAGHTY: “Is Charles Djou of Hawaii the Sequel to Scott Brown of Massachusetts?” The big news, of course, is that people are even asking this question. Hawaii?

KENNETH ANDERSON: Interrogating The CIA.

WORLD WILDLIFE FOUNDATION: The ‘Para-Governmental Organization’ at the Epicenter of Climategate.

THE HILL: Will The Exploding Deficit Hurt Democrats?

THE AUTOPROPHET geocache challenge.

THE UNDERAPPRECIATED VIRTUES OF Trial By Ordeal. “The key insight is that ordeals weren’t just widely practiced. They were widely believed in. It’s this belief – literally, the fear of God – that could have allowed the ordeals to function effectively.”

UNHAPPY hipsters.

ER, SO IS THIS THE HOPE? OR THE CHANGE? Deficit To Hit All-Time High.

UPDATE: Steven Landsberg: It’s the spending.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails: “I reckon he’s looking for spare change.” Heh.

A FIRST LOOK AT the new NASA budget.

IN THE MAIL: From Michael Shelden, Mark Twain: Man in White: The Grand Adventure of His Final Years.

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: Watch state spend wildly at new website. The site is www.IllinoisIsBroke.com.

WE’RE ALSO RUNNING A MAJOR trust deficit.