GULF OIL SPILL VOTED TOP NEWS STORY OF 2010. I guess it really was Obama’s Katrina.

RADLEY BALKO: How To Record The Cops: A Guide To Keeping Law Enforcement Accountable. I think we need a federal statute protecting people’s right to record police in public places. Any suggestions for sponsors in the House and Senate?

OOPS: Banks Foreclosing On Wrong Houses.

ONE-DAY-ONLY SALE: DeWalt 18v Hammer Drill, $159.99.

UPDATE: Reader Darryl Boyd emails: “They are also giving another $25 off at checkout for a total price of $134.99.” Wow. I had missed that.

DAN MITCHELL: John Galt tells Oregon politicians to screw off.

MORE COPYRIGHT TROLLING FROM RIGHTHAVEN, this time over images. I love that the image is reproduced in the story, with this note: “Image: Vdara ‘death ray’ graphic as it appears in a Righthaven court filing.”

TOP CHRISTMAS DEALS in Electronics.

JOHN FUND: The Net Neutrality Coup: The campaign to regulate the Internet was funded by a who’s who of left-liberal foundations.

COVERING THE NEWS: The Washington Post’s unique genre: ‘That pattern we never told you about, of corporate lobbyists favoring Democrats, is ending.’

HOW BIG is the Chinese property bubble? “Property investment in China in 2009 was 10% of GDP, up from 8% in 2007. In Japan, at the peak of its bubble, it did not exceed 9%; in the U.S. it never exceeded 6%. . . . As usual, the identifcation of the bubble is not the hardest part, it’s the timing of the pop. Bubbles have a habit of going on a lot longer than most think they can and given the political pressure to keep it going and the financial resources available to the central planners, this bubble may have a way to go yet.” This is a couple of weeks old, but still seems pretty relevant. It’s not like things in China have improved since. . . .

RON RADOSH ON Hugo Chavez’s syncretic approach to tyranny.

LINDSEY GRAHAM: GOP to blame for ‘capitulation … of dramatic proportions’ in lame-duck. When Lindsey Graham is calling you spineless. . . .

IT’S THE SHARIA SOLUTION! “Over 30 and still single? Try polygamy!”

A CONSTITUTIONAL CORRECTION FOR SNARLIN’ ARLEN SPECTER:

Bleh. You just disagree with the call. I hate this sort of political posturing. It’s not the massiveness of the congressional record that makes a statute constitutional. It’s fitting within the Constitution.

Specter is acting as if the question at the confirmation hearing was: If we put a really, really huge number of words into the record, do you promise to let us do anything we want? And the answer was: Yes, of course. When I see a lot of pages, I always think, wow, that must be true.

Specter is a rare creature. Most Senators only disgrace one party, but he’s managed to embarrass both.

“SMART POWER:” U.S. Director of National Intelligence on London terror arrests: Er, what terror arrests? That’s what he gets for skipping Drudge.

THE BUTTER IS spread too thick.

STILL ROLLING OUT THE last-minute holiday deals. Well, it’s only the 21st, so it’s not quite the last minute, but you can see it from here. . . .

THIS IS NOT THE HOPE I WAS LOOKING FOR: Government liabilities rose $2 trillion in FY 2010: Treasury. “The U.S. government fell deeper into the red in fiscal 2010 with net liabilities swelling more than $2 trillion as commitments on government debt and federal benefits rose, a U.S. Treasury report showed on Tuesday. The Financial Report of the United States, which applies corporate-style accrual accounting methods to Washington, showed the government’s liabilities exceeded assets by $13.473 trillion. That compared with a $11.456 trillion gap a year earlier.”

Just the other day, one of my colleagues told me he was planning a trip to Barbados, “while my dollars will still buy something like that.”

CHAOS IN IRANIAN PORT? I hope it leads to something.

GUNS GET THROUGH, but microphone shuts down Dallas airport. From last summer, but still . . . .