These news updates to stories previously covered at Homeland Stupidity are a bit mixed.

Today we have a dying pig, scared air marshals, incompetent emergency planning and underappreciated intelligence.

• King of pork Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) might not get to build his bridge to nowhere after all. The House has inserted language into the transportation appropriations bill to prohibit Alaska from spending any money to build the bridge. Now to see if that amendment actually survives…
• The government isn’t even prepared to save itself, let alone you, in the event of a major catastrophic event. Government employees chime in about the government’s fatally flawed continuity of government plan.
• Federal air marshals, long suffering from low morale and a shortage of qualified people at the top levels of the service, tell Congress that many service policies actually put security in jeopardy. They’re hiring, by the way.
• Finally, the Central Intelligence Agency’s Open Source Center, which collects intelligence from publicly available sources, is apparently the underappreciated red-headed stepchild of the CIA, prompting Rep. Rob Simmons (R-Conn.) to call for it to be promoted to an independent agency.