A SUPER-DIVIDED TUESDAY. The Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne strikes (out) again.

Yessiree. The Democrats are ideologically diverse (ranging from far left to extreme left) while the the Republicans are “opting for ideological purity” as “more-conservative-than-thou.”

The lens that Dionne and those of his ilk see through is so narrow that anything to the right of his focus is on the fringe. As a friend once said about another liberal: “He’s so far out on the left that the middle of the bird looks right wing.”

HOW LONG UNTIL ICELAND IS SUED for not controlling its volcanoes?

A THOROUGHLY DISGUSTING PERFORMANCE: “A clearly frustrated President Obama on Friday said that the system for preventing accidents like the April 20 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico ‘failed badly,’ while calling the ‘blame game’ among oil executives at Senate hearings this week ‘a ridiculous spectacle’."

This by the man who started the “blame game” himself.

Mr. Obama, until the leak is completely and thoroughly plugged up, if you don’t have something constructive to say, please shut up.

The first order of business is to plug the damn leak. The second order of business is to clean up the mess. The third order of business is to find out what happened – and how it happened.

The last order of business is to assign blame, and Mr. President, as an engineer with 30+ years of experience, I can assure that there will be plenty of blame to pass around, and some of it will be on your watch.

I can say with absolute certainty that when the final report is written, it will be shown that the explosion and subsequent events will prove to have been caused by a number of mistakes, errors of judgement, communication lapses, mechanical failures and unanticipated problems, some serious, most not so serious, that had they occured in a different sequence would not have resulted in a catastrophic failure.

There will be a valuable lesson to be learned from the Deepwater Horizon explosion: leave the ’blamestorming’ for last. That the lesson will be learned is unlikely.

TO GLEEFULLY BORROW A PHRASE FROM INSTAPUNDIT: They told me that if I voted for McCain, the government would attempt to ban books. And they were right.

THE WASHINGTON POST’S DANA MILBANK is terrified. And rightly so – the progressive Left, so ably represented by Milbank, is finally beginning to realize that they don’t have a lock on truth, justice, and the American way.

The last dodo was probably terrified too.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM? Or school choice?

I’M ALMOST READY TO MOVE TO ALABAMA to vote for this guy.

OOPS! White House efforts to tout the rollout of President Obama's health care program this week were brought up short by an independent government analysis showing the plan will cost $115 billion more than advertised.

THEN VIRGINIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE Bob McDonnell got blasted by the Left as a radical anti-women, anti-gay, anti-welfare-state bigot, for his 20-year old Master’s thesis. The Washington Post broke the story.

Now we have Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s undergraduate thesis at Princeton University: “Socialism in New York City.”

The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism's decline, still wish to change America. Radicals have often succumbed to the devastating bane of sectarianism; it is easier, after all, to fight one's fellows than it is'to battle an entrenched and powerful' foe. Yet if 'the history of Local New York shows anything, it is that American radicals cannot afford to become their own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope.

Question: Why didn’t the Washington Post break this story?

LOOKS LIKE CHANGING PARTIES ISN’T WORKING: Sestak leads Specter by 9 points.

More here.

BLOWBACK: “Look, just because we called you racist bigots … doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t visit.”

Arizona responds.

"THE ECONOMIC ATTITUDE of the nation has shifted. We are no longer a nation of self-sufficient, rugged individualists; we are now a nation of addicts, hooked on a politician's promises of economic safety.... This is why America is lost. Too many Americans are hooked for us to return to a sound economic footing via the normal political processes."

Link via Instapundit.

AUSTIN, TEXAS: moonbat capitol of the American southwest. Read the comments, too.

A FRESH LOOK AT wireless power transmission. Small appliances, close by? Probably. Planes, trains, and automobiles? Not likely.

TO SERVE MANN: Virginia’s AG Puts Climate-Researcher on the Menu.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II has opened an investigation into whether Professor Michael Mann (whose “hide the decline” email was an the center of the Climategate scandal) violated the Commonwealth’s Fraud Against Taxpayers Act when he served as a faculty member at the University of Virginia. Dr. Peter Wood, President of the National Association of Scholars, comments:

At NAS , we are neither supporters nor skeptics of climate science per se. We support good science on important topics. Good science, however, sometimes requires more than closely-cabined peer review. It also requires public accountability. And this is especially true in a campus atmosphere dominated by unscientific certainty on the matters in question. The reigning unscientific certainty in higher education is visible in lots of ways, including the 685 college and university presidents in the United States that have signed on to a preemptive declaration—the College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment—that treats global warming caused by human emissions as a settled fact which requires by way of response “integrating sustainability into the curriculum.”

Read it all.

Linked from PowerLine.

NOW WE KNOW WHY the stimulus money is being spent so slowly: it takes 5 months to hire one government worker. John Derbyshire comments on this part of the news article:

For the first time in history, applicants will be able to submit résumés and cover letters and will not be required to complete knowledge skills and ability essays.

“Down with knowledge, skills, and ability! No need for that stuff in the federal workforce!”

I must have worked for the government before history began (1968 actually) since all I filled out was the 4-page SF-171. But in 1968 I was a new college graduate – it was obvious I had no knowledge, skills, or ability - and then, as now, there was “no need for that stuff in the federal workforce.”

I lasted 18 months.

DESPITE REPEATEDLY VOICING CONCERNS about Arizona's new immigration enforcement law in recent weeks and threatening to challenge it, Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday he has not yet read the law.

These guys must take prescription-strength stupidity pills daily to maintain this level of incompetence.

WHO’S SURPRISED? Obama administration liberals, apparently.

IF WE’RE EVER to run our electric grid on the on-again, off-again power that wind and sun provide, we’re going to need better batteries. Here’s an option.

In place of the solid electrodes of a conventional battery, flow batteries use two liquid electrolytes that react when pumped through a cell stack. The battery is broken down into a cell stack and two large electrolyte tanks; as the electrolyte flows past a porous membrane in each cell, ions and electrons flow back and forth, charging or discharging the battery.

Voltage and current capacity are defined by the chemical reaction used and the number, size, and connection of the individual battery cells. Energy storage capacity is defined by the size of the electrolyte storage tanks. Recharging simply means reversing the current flow - or putting in fresh electrolyte.

More here.

SENATOR BOB BENNETT’S LOSS at the Utah Republican convention a ‘Damn Outrage,’ ‘Non-Violent Coup,’ and part of larger intolerant GOP narrative.

Wow. The ‘nonviolent coup’ remark is particularly ironic ... I always thought that the ability to vote to remove from the leadership of your organization someone who isn’t performing to your expectations was called democracy.