White House Apologizes for Air Force Flyover  —  A reader, Jim Brown, took this photograph from 10 Exchange Place in Jersey City, looking toward 77 Hudson Street and the Statue of Liberty.  In the photo, the plane appears closer than it actually was.  —  Updated, 5 p.m. |

GOP Know-Nothings Fought Pandemic Preparedness  —  When House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who has long championed investment in pandemic preparation, included roughly $900 million for that purpose in this year's emergency stimulus bill …

The Media Elite's Secret Dinners  —  Last Tuesday evening, Rahm Emanuel quietly slipped into an eighth-floor office at the Watergate.  —  As white-jacketed waiters poured red and white wine and served a three-course salmon and risotto dinner, the White House chief of staff spent two hours chatting …

Pakistani Intelligence: Osama Is Dead  —  As Pakistan wrestles with the Taliban takeover of large swaths of its territory and the encroachment on Islamabad, its Inter-Services Intelligence agency tells us that Osama bin Laden is dead. … If you can't trust the ISI to give you accurate information …

Slim Majority Wants Bush-Era Interrogations Investigated  —  Majority says use of harsh techniques on terrorism suspects was justified  —  PRINCETON, NJ — A new Gallup Poll finds 51% of Americans in favor and 42% opposed to an investigation into the use of harsh interrogation techniques …

Obama gets ahead of prompter  —  President Obama's speech at the National Academy of Sciences Monday morning hit a brief snag when Obama got ahead of his script.  —  Laying his plan for a President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, Obama began to name the members of PCAST listed …

Just Imagine: The First 100 Days of John McCain  —  If things had gone differently.....  John McCain, the oldest first-term president in history, is proving as rambunctious and pugnacious as the youngest one, Teddy Roosevelt.  Of course, Teddy probably would have sent the Marines to Venezuela …

The Republican Shrinkage Problem  —  The new Washington Post/ABC news poll has all sorts of intriguing numbers in it but when you are looking for clues as to where the two parties stand politically there is only one number to remember: 21.  —  That's the percent of people in the Post/ABC survey …

Interview with Miss California, Carrie Prejean  —  Sanctuary of the Rock Church - San Diego - April 26, 2009  —  Rex Wockner: Clearly, nobody would ever get up there (at the Miss USA pageant) and say, “I don't think black people should be able to marry white people” or something like that.

Reid says Obama told him, ‘I have a gift’  —  WASHINGTON - Everyone knows President Barack Obama can deliver a great speech, including the president himself, according to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.  —  The paperback version of Reid's book, “The Good Fight,” is coming out May 5 with an epilogue called “The Obama Era.”

Drop in Newspaper Circulation Accelerates  —  The rate of decline in circulation at the nation's newspapers has accelerated since last fall, as industry figures released Monday show a more than 7 percent drop compared with the prior year.  —  Of the top 25 newspapers in the United States …

Cantor, Obama let sparks fly  —  House Republican Whip Eric Cantor returned from spring break determined to shed the “Dr. No” tag Democrats have hung around his neck — only to find himself in a face-to-face argument with the president over who started this year's rift with the House GOP.

Bush's Promise On Torture  —  From al Arabiya, after Abu Ghraib:  —  It's important for people to understand that in a democracy, there will be a full investigation.  In other words, we want to know the truth.  In our country, when there's an allegation of abuse ... there will be a full investigation …

Defending the Bush lawyers  —  As the sides take form on coming interrogation investigations, the Federalist Society appears to be stepping into the vacuum to defend former Bush administration officials.  —  The lawyers' group, which was a pipeline for judges in the Bush White House …

Why Is Torture Wrong?  —  Or more precisely, why is the belief that the torture of captured combatants is wrong compatible with anything other than some form of pacifism?  I mean this an actual question, not as a passive-aggressive assertion.  —  It can't just be that it involves inflicting horrible pain and suffering.

The Kill Ratio  —  I was aware that declining rates of “intimate” homicide have been a significant, though oft-overlooked, component of the declining murder rate in the United States.  Now I see at sociological images that there's an interesting gender twist to this:

More Atheists Shout It From the Rooftops  —  CHARLESTON, S.C. — Two months after the local atheist organization here put up a billboard saying “Don't Believe in God?  You Are Not Alone,” the group's 13 board members met in Laura and Alex Kasman's living room to grapple with the fallout.

Fox News' ‘Tea Party’ hysteria really did whip up the far-right nutcases  —  In spite of all that voluminous airspace on Fox News that was devoted to promoting and then reporting on the ‘Tea Parties’ on April 15, I'll be willing to wager that they won't ever include this in their reports: