ASU Stiffs Obama, Claims Too Inexperienced For Honorary Degree  —  TEMPE, ARIZONA - Universities typically confer an honorary degree on commencement speakers, particularly those who have reached the pinnacle of their career or achieved the top of their field.

Post Reporter Says It's Not His Job to Check the Accuracy of People He's Quoting  —  You rarely see the kind of full-throated defense of journalism-as-stenography that The Washington Post's Paul Kane offers up here: … This is fairly simple.  What we want is that if you're …

Did He Bow?  The Last Word  —  Some people think that President Obama's bow to King Abdullah was significant, not only because it was a naive breach of protocol, but because such signs of submission are taken seriously in the Arab world.  (In fact, Obama's bow received approving coverage in the Arab press.)

Kerry calls for pirate hearings as drama continues  —  The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee called for hearings on the mounting piracy threat as the fate of an American cargo-ship captain remained in limbo Thursday.  —  “These acts of piracy off of Somalia's coastline may seem surreal …

Ten Questions for Legal Advisor-Nominee Harold Hongju Koh  —  I have tried to stay quiet in the ongoing “Koh Wars” in the blogosphere, where Ed Whelan seems to be taking on the entire legal academic blogosphere himself and getting in a bad mood about it.  I am also conflicted.

C.I.A. Closing Secret Overseas Sites for Terror Detainees  —  WASHINGTON — The Central Intelligence Agency announced on Thursday that it will no longer use contractors to conduct interrogations, and that it is decommissioning the secret overseas sites where for years it held high-level Al Qaeda prisoners.

Connecting the Dots: The Link Between Gay Marriage and Mass Murders  —  On April 4 the NY Times ran adjacent front-page articles on the Iowa Supreme Court decision legalizing ‘gay marriage’ and the gunman who murdered 13 people in New York.  That day the Times also ran an op ed article …

Rove Calls Biden ‘Liar’ After VP Boasts of Scolding Bush  —  Aides to former President George W. Bush are challenging the veracity of Vice President Joe Biden's claim this week of having privately castigated Bush.  —  FOXNews.com  —  Republican strategist Karl Rove called Vice President Biden a …

Obama Offers Plan to Improve Care for Veterans  —  President Obama announced plans on Thursday to computerize the medical records of veterans into a unified system, a move that is expected to ease the now-cumbersome process that results in confusion, lost records and bureaucratic delays.

Obama Reaches Out to ‘Moderate’ Pirate Community  —  After maintaining his silence for two days, President Obama will soon make his first public statement about the pirate attack upon an U.S.-flagged vessel off the Horn of Africa.  After several inquiries and a few well-placed bribes …

Meghan McCain's Book Sold to Hyperion For High Six Figures  —  John McCain's 24-year-old daughter Meghan has a book deal!  Sources say Hyperion has prevailed over at least three other publishers in an auction that began earlier this week, following a round of meetings during …

Sabotage attacks knock out phone service  —  (04-09) 17:16 PDT SAN JOSE — Vandals cut fiber-optic cable lines belonging to AT&T at two locations early today, knocking out phones and access to 911 emergency services to thousands of residential customers and businesses in southern Santa Clara County …

Schumer: ‘The Hard Right, Which Still Believes’ in ‘Traditional Values’...'All That Is Over.'  —  Thank you Jillian Bandes for posting on this.  —  Schumer also says this in the clip:  —  “I think President Obama has a pretty smart strategy.  He is going to talk bipartisanship to the American people.

Bachus says there's 17 ‘socialists’ in House  —  Rep. Spencer Bachus, the top Republican on the Financial Services Committee, told a hometown crowd in Alabama today he believes there are several socialists in the House.  —  Actually, he says there are exactly 17 socialists in the House …

HILARIOUS PIRATE SOLUTION.  —  The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a conservative think tank that regularly blasts out press releases condemning the Obama administration's various economic depredations, but today they demonstrate their intellectual consistency by wandering into the pirates debate:

AlQaeda terror plot to bomb Easter shoppers  —  An al-Qaeda cell was days away from carrying out an “Easter spectacular” of co-ordinated suicide bomb attacks on shopping centres in Manchester, police believe.  —  Sources told The Daily Telegraph that the arrests of 12 men in the north west …

White House hit by swarm of bees  —  (CNN) - The Secret Service is always on the alert for aerial assaults — but on Thursday, White House grounds were hit by one unexpected airborne threat.  —  A swarm of honey bees took over a bush located between the Northwest security gate of the White House …

U.S. Food Safety No Longer Improving  —  WASHINGTON — After decades of steady progress, the safety of the nation's food supply has not improved over the past three years, the government reported Thursday.  And, it said, in the case of salmonella, the dangerous bacteria recently found …