Derb's Screed  —  Needless to say, no one at National Review shares Derb's appalling view of what parents supposedly should tell their kids about blacks in this instantly notorious piece here.

On Ryan Apologists  —  In my next life I want to be a conservative policy scammer.  Think of how much nicer it would be.  Instead of constantly being accused of having evil motives, I'd be presumed to have noble intentions no matter how much the actual content of my policy proposals was at odds with such claims.

A sorry spectacle  —  Jay Cost takes a look back at Obama's public performances this week, as I did in “Twice in a lifetime,” and explains exactly what is happening: … Cost absolutely nails the Obama scenario and what it portends for our future in this terrific column.  —  UPDATE: Robert Stacy McCain comments here.

Michigan Republicans have ILLEGALLY passed over 96% (546) of their bills under “immediate effect”  —  It's much, much worse in Michigan than we even realized  —  Last night, Rachel Maddow broke a huge story that has been happening since Republicans took over in Michigan in 2011 and has gone completely under the radar.

Uncorrected: Charles Blow Finally Returns To The Scene Of His Journalistic Crime  —  When last he wrote on the subject of Trayvon Martin Charles Blow focused, appropriately, on the grief of a family in shock.  In so doing, however, he emphasized the implausibility of George Zimmerman's self-defense claim …

Isn't it “marvelous?”  Obama seeks to define Romney for voters  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When President Barack Obama criticized Mitt Romney by name this week for embracing a controversial Republican budget proposal, he worded his attack carefully and with bite.

Huckabee Mum On VP Speculation: 'Don't Buy The Corsage For The Prom Until You Get The Date'  —  With a moderate Republican as frontrunner and the question of how to woo independents while keeping the far right charged up loom for Mitt Romney, the running mate he chooses becomes all the more important.

China's Andrei Sakharov  —  The speeches of the astrophysicist Fang Lizhi have galvanized students and given political discourse in China a new depth of field, and although he has been expelled from the Chinese Communist Party his influence is undiminished  —  WHEN I returned to Beijing …

The Talk: Nonblack Version  —  There is much talk about “the talk.”  —  “Sean O'Reilly was 16 when his mother gave him the talk that most black parents give their teenage sons,” Denisa R. Superville of the Hackensack (NJ) Record tells us.  Meanwhile, down in Atlanta: “Her sons were 12 and 8 …

John Derbyshire's Advice for White People … - California Governor Frees Grandmother Wrongly Jailed in Shaken-Baby Death - Who Would Win a Fight Between Nurse Jackie and Carmela Soprano?  Edie Falco's Pick.  - Damsels in Distress: Whit Stillman.  Greta Gerwig.  College.  What Could Go Wrong?

NBC Fires Producer of Misleading Zimmerman Tape  —  NBC News has fired a producer who was involved in the production of a misleading segment about the Trayvon Martin case in Florida.  —  The person was fired on Thursday, according to two people with direct knowledge of the disciplinary action …