The American auto industry continues it's fall as GM announces a plan to drop 40 percent of it's dealerships. This is very bad news in a lot of ways as local dealers do many things in their communities, and local media, including newspapers, radio and TV stations, rely on their advertising dollars. The fall of GM and Chrysler is just another body blow for newspapers.

Here is an interesting article on some ways that the Federal Government could save newspapers by making changes in law, rather than through direct subsidies. I haven't thought about this enough to comment, so I will ponder it for now and then write more on the issue later. But my first thought is that it makes sense that the people who generate content should not be forced to give that content away for free, but are they being forced to do so, or is that content being taken from them without their consent because of the way in which laws are written?

Bill Kristol gives thanks for Dick Cheney. I agree. Don't be taken in by articles in the MSM that find Republicans who are critical of Cheney for his outspoken ways. The reporters and editors of those publications want the GOP to LOSE, so of course they find spineless Republicans who quail at the fire coming from a FIGHTING Republican. Keep it up, Mr. Vice-President.

Are Islamists on the verge of taking over Somalia, or what's left of it?

While President Obama is busy retreating from campaign promises, including the one where he said he would not rely on military tribunals to try terrorists, Speaker Pelosi is busy trying to convince people she wasn't briefed on the 'enhanced interrogation techniques' the CIA was using against those terrorists. Here job is being made more difficult by the new Director of Central Intelligence, former Democratic Congressman and White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, whose past associations ought to give him a little credibility with Democratic partisans, who rebuts Pelosi's charge that CIA briefers didn't tell her the truth.

Meanwhile, a London paper is reporting that Panetta recently went to Israel to urge the new Israeli government not to attack Iran without first notifying the U.S. government.