WASHINGTON POST: Attack Watch, new Obama campaign site to ‘fight smears,’ becomes laughing stock of conservatives.

UPDATE: A reader emails: “The original headline said ‘Internet’, not ‘conservatives’. Someone changed for some unknown reason. :)” I’m not sure the change helps Obama.

CHANGE: New Website Reveals The End Of The Politics Of Hope.

SOLARGATE UPDATE: Treasury Department Launches Investigation of Solyndra Loan. “The Treasury Department’s inspector general has opened a new front in the investigation of the government loan to Solyndra, the now bankrupt company that had been touted as a model of President Obama’s ambitious green energy program, ABC News and the Center for Public Integrity/iWatch News have learned.”

NY-09 AND THE DEMOCRATS’ PROBLEM with white working-class voters.

HEH: “Liberal Bloggers React To New York Defeat By Pushing Rumor That Sarah Palin Slept With A Guy And Did Coke. Which is hilarious because they immediately dismissed the exact same rumor about Obama in 2008.” Political history repeats itself. The first time as farce. The second time as, uh . . . farcier farce?

I DON’T THINK THERE WILL BE ANY NEED FOR FANCY FOOTWORK: Pennsylvania Ponders Bold Democrat-Screwing Electoral Plan.

UPDATE: Prof. Stephen Clark emails:

In Weigel’s piece it is noted that Republicans control the legislature and executive. Time again to bang my drum about the importance of down-ticket elections.

As satisfying as a defeat of the President would be, the real action is going to be in down-ticket races; right down through state legislators and governors to mayors and county commissioners. The combined effects of the 2010 census and mid-term elections and the general discontent prevalent in the land make the next election the best opportunity to come in several decades to affect a general realignment of governance in the country.

Indeed. And reader Jason Muckenthaler writes:

Democrats proposed an initiative in 2004 that would allocate the state’s electoral votes proportionately based on the states popular vote. As I recall, the initiative lost – but any objections to the Pennsylvania proposal from Democrats ring especially hollow given their attempt to influence the 2004 election. In fact, their real objection is that they didn’t think of doing this themselves in some other state…

Well, that’s usually the real objection.

UNEMPLOYED LAWYER turns to stripping to pay student loan debts. But I’m not sure she’s learned her lesson: “After working as a waitress and a cashier in a gas station, she told MSNBC she became so desperate she took a job as an exotic dancer. And now she has turned her finances around – and is earning enough to pay her fees for a Masters degree in law.”

A BLEG FROM SARAH HOYT:

Could you post a question to the insty hive mind? What are good movies/mini-series/documentaries about the American revolution?

There’s a er… similar revolution in the sf book I’m writing and I have a massive pile of ironing to do — which means I need ten hours or so of video. (I know, I know, the glamorous life of the novelist.)

Glamorous like mine!

UPDATE: Lots of people recommend Mel Gibson’s The Patriot, for a fictionalized account, and of course the John Adams miniseries.

Reader Mike Howard writes: “In response to Sarah Hoyt, I recommend ‘The Revolution’ from The History Channel. It’s 13 parts, accurate and very well done. Quite an interesting series. Here’s a link that you might use to get a buck or two!”

And reader Thomas Prewitt recommends the musical 1776. Lots of readers recommend The Crossing, too.

HOW TO BECOME a backyard astronomer.

AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Science Fiction & Fantasy.

THAT’S INTERESTING: Nasal Delivery Of Insulin Appears To Help Alzheimer’s Patients.

DICK CHENEY, our modern Ajax? “A subtext to the latter half of the memoir is that in early 2009, when Barack Obama was deemed ‘godlike,’ Cheney—out of office, ill, mostly alone, and terribly unpopular—finally went public and took on Obama’s serial criticism of the Bush-Cheney anti-terrorism protocols. Those were soon to be validated when Obama embraced or expanded almost everything that Cheney had helped craft since 2001. In mythological terms, the post 9/11 Cheney was no longer a fixer like Odysseus, but became an unyielding Ajax who would rather be right than liked—or rather knew that to be right in Washington, he mostly could not be liked.”

POPULAR SCIENCE tests the Roku 2XS.

It’s hard to beat the price. And my older Roku was easy to set up and works perfectly.

DISMANTLING LATE COLD-WAR security artifacts.

HOW TO SHARPEN A KNIFE with a cup.

INSTAVISION: I talk with Sonia Arrison about her new book, 100 Plus: How The Coming Age Of Longevity Will Change Everything, From Careers and Relationships to Family and Faith.

PETER WEHNER: A Presidency In Collapse: Has Obama Learned Anything? Nope, and he hasn’t forgotten anything.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA (CONT’D): Income Slides to 1996 Levels: Median Household Earnings Fall for Third Year, Census Says.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Are Women Genetically Wired To Dislike Science?

FAST CHARGES FROM Lithium-Titanium Batteries. “We can charge our battery to 50 percent of full capacity in six minutes while the traditional graphite-based lithium ion battery would be just 10 percent charged at the same current.”

IT’S H.R. 822: Quick Summary of the Proposed National Right to Carry Act.

DANA LOESCH accepts Harvey Weinstein’s invitation.

ELECTORALLY HE’S PRESIDENT MILLSTONE, but legislatively he’s “President Feather.” No way Obama’s jobs bill will pass the Senate, say — Democrats?

MORE ENVIRO-FRAUD: Clean energy official succumbs to power of green.

The chief financial officer for an organization devoted to promoting green energy admitted Tuesday he succumbed to the allure of another green — cash money.

Cameron J. Potter pleaded guilty Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Thomas Phillips to bilking the Department of Energy of more than $400,000 intended for legitimate use by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy to promote renewable energy sources, typically dubbed “green energy.”

Potter, 31, was employed as the chief financial officer for SACE when, in 2006, he concocted a scheme to siphon off money awarded the advocacy group by the DOE for his own personal gain, Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Dale told Phillips.

There seems to be a lot of green scammery going around lately.

THE CURIOUS SCIENCE OF counting a crowd.