April 28, 2007

IN LIGHT OF MY EARLIER POST ON IMPORTED OIL, I should probably note this column from today's WSJ which makes an important point:

As long as the U.S. remains part of a global market in fuels, the impact of events abroad will not stop at the border. For example, in a crisis that cut off supplies from Saudi Arabia, the price of oil needed in Europe and Asia might double or triple overnight. Prices would rise in response in the U.S. even if we weren't importing oil, as markets directed the fuel that was available to the highest bidders.

That's true -- and it also means, of course, that a shutdown of oil at its source wouldn't just hurt the U.S., but all of Saudi Arabia's customers. And it certainly suggests that building up domestic sources -- especially things like oil shale -- will help buffer shocks from elsewhere.

THE CARNIVAL OF CARS IS UP! Lots of other carnivals, of course, at BlogCarnival.com.

STUART BUCK: "The way that our country treats chronic pain sufferers who use too much pain medication seems insane to me. I can't find any evidence that Oxycontin, say, is anywhere near as dangerous as alcohol -- i.e., tens of thousands of fatalities every single year. But we don't make people get a prescription to buy a beer, let alone throw people in jail for 25 years for having a bottle of vodka in the house."

And read this on the Hurwitz case, by John Tierney.

THOUGHTS ON OBAMA VOTES AS RACISM OFFSETS?

Let's hope it's more genuine than the carbon offsets are turning out to be . . . .

GEORGE TENET'S NEW BOOK inspires some thoughts from Tom Maguire.

Plus, a look back at intelligence. And here's another one in which he seemed pretty confident that we'd find "caches of weapons of mass destruction" once Saddam was overthrown. Plus, Zarqawi. So he was batting .500!

YOU CAN FEEL THE EXCITEMENT: "After 6 years of the Bush presidency, we finally have a sex scandal. And not the Mark Foley naughty e-mails stuff. A Clintonesque affair complete with hookers."

If we legalized prostitution, would stuff like this still be a scandal? We should, anyway.

ZELLMENTUM! The Draft Zell movement seems to be taking off!

NICK GILLESPIE TALKS ABOUT IMMIGRATION, on Penn & Teller's Bullshit! YouTube version available here.

ROSS DOUTHAT moves to The Atlantic. They're really snapping up talent.

DEMOGRAPHICS: Will Wilkinson asks: "So what explains the fact that America is the land where white people reproduce?"

BUMBLING THE BEE SCARE: I like the photos.

SENATE DEMOCRATS are rallying to Harry Reid's defense against that loudmouthed conservative David Broder.

The real message, of course, is that they expect the Post and its columnists to stick to their real job -- attacking Republicans -- and not stray off the reservation. If I were Broder, I'd respond with a column on Harry Reid's land deals.

HIRING "SCANDALS" AT THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE: Todd Zywicki is far from scandalized:

Oh my goodness--a bust of James Madison in his very office! Gracious, a civil rights lawyer who clerked for Charles Pickering--who "congressional Democrats ... contended" was hostile to civil rights (apparently since some congressional Democrats "contended it," all of his clerks are disqualified from working in the office).

The other example cited in the article seems odd as well--why is it supposed to be a problem that a graduate of Regent Law School might be interested in working on "some religious liberties" cases. Would we be similarly shocked if a minority graduate of Southern Law School, for example, expressed a particular interest in working on Voting Rights cases, or a former intern at a pro-choice organization was interested in reproductive rights cases?

The unintentional irony of this is that these examples are provided as examples of the "nonideological" bona fides of the career lawyers who offered them as examples. The career lawyer who is cited (as well as the authors of the article) seems confident that any right-minded person would shocked and outraged that a lawyer was a member of the Federalist Society and had a bust of James Madison in his office or that one of Judge Pickering's clerks worked in the civil rights division. . . . But if these are the "smoking gun" examples that are the best ones that career attorneys can offer as conservative ideology run amuck at the DOJ, then it seems to me that this says more about the real biases of the supposedly "nonpolitical" attitudes of DOJs career attorneys and the ideological parochialism of the Washington Post than about some sort of hiring "scandal" at DOJ. If these are the sorts of trivialities that career DOJ attorneys consider to be evidence of an extreme ideological shift to the right at the DOJ, then forgive me for being skeptical that the end result of giving career lawyers a monopoly on hiring for these positions is going to eliminate ideology from the hiring process.

I guess they should have called it a diversity hiring program.

'IT'S A SHAME CARS DON'T RUN ON COGNITIVE DISSONANCE:" Mocking celebrity hypocrisy on the environment at The Daily Show.

SANDMONKEY HAS QUIT BLOGGING: "One of the chief reasons is the fact that there has been too much heat around me lately. I no longer believe that my anonymity is kept, especially with State Secuirty agents lurking around my street and asking questions about me since that day . . . .And speaking of the state of the egyptian blogsphere, it has been pretty depressing in its own right. One has to wonder at some point the futulity of being a keyboard warrior in a country where nothing seems to matter to its people anymore."

AT BOINGBOING, an interesting post by Cory Doctorow on Dan Gilbert's book, Stumbling on Happiness.

ON BILL RICHARDSON:

Isn't Richardson the manliest of the Democratic candidates, with his guns and his sports? Unfortunately, he doesn't look athletic and, in any case, Democrats seem to be immune to such red state attractions. At least not until after they've chosen their candidate.

Richardson is polling way ahead of other Democrats among InstaPundit readers. As I've mentioned before, I like his positions on space, too. Interestingly, Kos likes Richardson. That may not be surprising, as he's been happy to back Democrats who look like they might win Red State votes -- e.g., James Webb.

VOTING ON the greatest car chase in movie history.

IOWAHAWK offers an amusing take on gun control efforts.

ROGER SIMON on the real life and the phony life.

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY notes recent Al Qaeda attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure and observes: "Perhaps the most devastating attack Osama bin Laden could deliver on America wouldn't be in America. It would be in Saudi Arabia, on its oil supply. Saudi Arabia is the world's top oil exporter, and Osama has called for attacks on its refineries and pipelines expressly to cripple our economy."

In the short term, expanding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve will help. In the longer term, less dependence on imported oil would help more.

UPDATE: Well, here's a report that Colorado oil shale is back in play. Better to move away from fossil fuels as much as possible, but the ones we use should probably be domestic.

OKAY, SO I HAVE A PRETTY NICE ELECTRIC BLOWER-VAC, except that the vac attachment got smashed and it would probably cost more to replace it than to just get a whole new blower. I'd be happy to just buy another -- it's been fine and it's pretty cheap -- but I wonder if there's a cordless blower-vac that works well enough to be worth buying. Everything I can find seems kind of wimpy, with disclaimers like this: "While this blower provides adequate air velocity for doing maintenance cleaning in the areas mentioned above, it is not designed to be a blower for use in moving fall leaves on the lawn." Am I just asking too much?

I find the blower-vac one of the most useful yard tools out there. What's your favorite?

MICKEY KAUS OBSERVES: "Don't the crowded Democratic debates need at least one more candidate--a conservative dark horse who can sharpen the debate from the right the way Kucinich sharpened it from the left?"

How about Zell Miller? The DraftZell.com domain shows as available . . . .

A PROVEN APPROACH to cleaning up the environment:

While the modern environmental movement often portrays capitalist industrial societies as the world’s biggest pollution problem, Forbes notes something interesting about the top-25 cleanest cities in the world: Most of them are in wealthy industrialized democracies. Turns out, all that industrialization created wealth which, in turn, buys the things (mass transit, especially) and pays for the policies that create a cleaner environment.

Yep. The good things in life generally come from wealthy, industrialized democracies.

FROM AUSTRALIA: "The US Congress' vote to push for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq was wrong and will bring comfort to Al-Qaeda insurgents, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Friday."

From Iraq: "I am an Iraqi. To me the possible consequences of this vote are terrifying. Just as we began to see signs of progress in my country the Democrats come and say, ‘Well, it’s not worth it.Time to leave’."

UPDATE: A look at the effect of timetables in Basra: "Now that the Brits and Danes have given the people of Basra a drop-dead date for their withdrawal, they have set in motion a fight for power that will only amplify as the withdrawal date approaches. Instead of throwing in with the central government, the flight of the Coalition has convinced Iraqis in that area that they have to find the strongest warlord for protection. We can expect this across the country if the US withdraws precipitately from Iraq. A pullout will embolden the violent and frighten the law-abiding, and the end result will be a completely failed state. Regardless of whether one supported the invasion or not, it is obviously not in the American interest to leave behind a collapsed Iraq where the boldest and most vicious terrorists rise to power in fiefdoms small and large."

Some people don't care, though, if it might give them a leg-up in the next election.

CARBON TRADING -- not just a scam, but a government-encouraged scam:

The government department spearheading Britain’s effort to reduce carbon output is driving companies and individuals towards paying under a European Union system for emissions cuts that do not take place.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has also channelled more than half of £215m paid out under a pilot UK greenhouse gas trading scheme to just four companies which spent considerably less than they received on emissions cuts.

The first charge against Defra is that, under a new code of practice, it has been advising businesses and consumers wishing to offset their emissions to buy carbon credits through the EU or a separate UN carbon trading scheme. However, phase one of the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS) has been discredited for giving companies so many carbon credits – effectively permits to pollute – that no overall reduction in emissions took place.

Why am I not surprised?

GENERALS IN IRAQ: In response to yesterday's post on the subject, a reader in Iraq who asks for anonymity emails:

Boot has a point about Generals.

They don't control much on the ground and the tactical decisions, but they have a huge say in asset allocation and priorities. (They know, but don't control.)

To see all the assets that have been arrayed on huge bases like Balaad, Al Asad, TQ, Victory Baghdad, then compare them to say PB 548 north of Habbaniyah, you see the priorities for asset allocation were inside the wire for a few years.

That is just now starting to switch.

Petraeus is fighting a battle not only against the enemy, but the military's bureaucratic machine. A machine built up over years in garrison without combat and now turning major bases in Iraq into garrison.

I heard a second hand story last night about a female soldier who was not complying with certain rules on a major base. The rules were because it was a 'combat zone.' Her defense? The base she was stationed on was not a combat zone.

I think I would have acquitted her.

Troops in big bases are a lot less likely to get killed, and casualties generate bad press. On the other hand, troops outside the wire can do a lot more, but at the cost of higher casualties.

A LOOK AT SEX AND GRADES in adolescence.

FORMER STATE SEN. JOHN FORD has been convicted of bribery. More here. The good news for Harold Ford, Jr. is that this will be old news by the time he runs for office again.

BEE UPDATE: MICKEY KAUS posts a report from the field: "My mother says her garden is 'absolutely buzzing' with bees. So they haven't all disappeared."

Meanwhile, although the cellphone theory got a lot of attention, the finger of suspicion is now pointing at a fungus.

CRIMINALIZING THE CONSUMER: The Economist writes on where DRM went wrong.

I think that the adversary relationship with their customers that record companies have fostered will do more to harm them than piracy, over time. In fact, I think it already has.

JAMES WEBB GUN UPDATE:

Authorities dropped charges Friday against an aide to Virginia Sen. Jim Webb who carried a loaded gun into the U.S. Capitol complex.

"After reviewing and analyzing all of the evidence in the case, we do not believe the essential elements of the crime of carrying a pistol without a license can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt," U.S. Attorney Jeff Taylor, top prosecutor in the District of Columbia, said in a short statement.

Webb senior aide Phillip Thompson, 45, was arrested on March 26 after Capitol Police spotted the loaded pistol and two other loaded magazines in a briefcase being scanned by an X-ray machine at the entrance of the Russell Senate office building.

Stlll no news on who the gun belonged to, though. I think this was the right outcome, as there wasn't any evidence that Thompson knew he had a gun in the bag. I just hope that others will get similar treatment. People don't always get off as easily in these circumstances. (Via Volokh).

UPDATE: Reader Patrick Gigliotti emails:

Webb is in Virginia, yes? Va. Tech is in Virginia, yes? If Senator Webb were a Republican we would be swamped with stories in the media about how his gun obsession influenced the minds of the youth in his state. The normal story line of "what message does this send to our children" did not appear. Gun control nutters have not mentioned his name. Curious.

Good point.

MIKE GRAVEL, superstar.

April 27, 2007

WELL, THIS IS NICE: "The al-Qaeda leader who is thought to have devised the plan for the July 7 suicide bombings in London and an array of terrorist plots against Britain has been captured by the Americans. Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a former major in Saddam Hussein’s army, was apprehended as he tried to enter Iraq from Iran and was transferred this week to the 'high-value detainee programme' at Guantanamo Bay."

Hey, wait -- an "al-Qaeda leader" who's also a "former major in Saddam Hussein's army"? But I thought there was no connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Or between Al Qaeda and Iran . . . .

UPDATE: Don Surber: London bombings? What London bombings?

The U.S. announced on Friday that it captured the mastermind behind the 7/7/2005 bombings in London.

But you would not know it by reading the New York Times, the Washington Post or the Associated Press.

None of them mentioned the London bombings in reporting on the capture of the man who organized that attack, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi (aka, Abu Abdallah).

Instead, reporters concentrated on where this major player in the war on terrorism was held after his capture. Incredible.

I don't know. It doesn't surprise me.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey comments: "All of these papers had hours after the Times of London report to get the London bombings into the story. The Times goes to bed at 7 pm ET and hits the feeds and wire services. None of the American media bothered to check on Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi. Readers should ask themselves whether that comes from a lack of intellectual curiosity, or whether it comes from a bias that puts the circumstances of the detention of a terrorist at a higher priority than the terrorism itself."

Either way, they're doing a crappy job. But if he'd had a connection to Jack Abramoff, you can bet they'd have mentioned it!

EMAIL OF THE DAY:

Subject: Comments Sectino

To: pundit

So, did you eliminate the comments section because you were tired of having us Libs hand you your anti-intellectual ass, or were you just trying to hide the fact that your fans are drooling mouth-breathers?

Given that I've never had a comment section -- or even a "comments sectino" -- I have no idea what provokes emails like this. But they certainly don't encourage me to add one, if this is the kind of person who's, er, drooling at the prospect of posting on my site.

REPUBLICANS VS. HILLARY: Interesting.

THE NORTH CAROLINA ATTORNEY GENERAL has released the report on the Duke Lacrosse prosecutorial debacle. The report's here. Excerpt:

The re-investigation led to the conclusion that there was no credible evidence to support the allegation that the crimes occurred. The new investigation revealed additional weaknesses in the State’s cases based on the case files that had already been developed.

The State’s cases rested primarily on a witness whose recollection of the facts of the allegations was imprecise and contradictory. This alone would have made it difficult for a prosecutor to prove the allegations. However with additional evidence uncovered in the new investigation, it was clear that there was no credible evidence that these crimes occurred at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. in Durham that night.

Naturally, K.C. Johnson is all over this. The Durham Police Department is coming off badly, too.

A CIVIL RIGHTS VICTORY IN KANSAS, as the legislature overrides a veto of liberalized carry laws by Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

UPDATE: It's certainly better than this approach. Jeez.

FIGHT! FIGHT! It's Lou Dobbs vs. Gavin Newsom.

Time to weigh in on this important topic:

Who should resign?
	Lou Dobbs, for his comments on immigrants.
	Gavin Newsom, for openly flouting the law.
	Both
pollcode.com free polls

But will someone please explain to all concerned that Hermann Goering was not the Nazis' propagandist-in-chief? That's Joseph Goebbels. If you're going to go all Godwin on this stuff, you need to at least know your Nazis. What has American politics come to?

UPDATE: Yes, of course it's a dumb poll. As befits its subject. And subjects.

JOHN MCCAIN DID A BLOGGER CONFERENCE CALL: I wasn't on it, but Ann Althouse and Ryan Sager were, and report some news. McCain's against civil unions, too. Not winning any points with me either.

GIULIANI COMES OUT AGAINST CIVIL UNIONS, which seems like something of a flipflop to me. At any rate, it's not winning any points as far as I'm concerned.

HOW TO DO GUN CONTROL: "Special squads of police. No notice searches. Fines. Imprisonment."

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh observes: "It does seem to me that a War on Guns, with unannounced random searches on streets and in homes, should be highly unappealing to anyone who has even some reservations about the War on Drugs, and questionable even to those who support the War on Drugs."

I can certainly see a downside. And as Volokh notes, proposals like this do illustrate the dishonesty of claims that "No one is trying to take away your guns," and that claims to the contrary are just a "gun lobby bogeyman."

COMPACT FLUORESCENTS AND MERCURY: Steven Milloy has a piece on compact fluorescents and mercury that a lot of people are writing about. Milloy tells the horrifying story of a woman in Ellsworth, Maine who broke a compact fluorescent bulb and wound up stuck with a $2000 hazmat cleanup bill.

The story may be true, but she could have saved herself some money by googling "compact fluorescent mercury." That would have brought her information like this:

The government's Energy Star program says the amount of mercury in a compact fluorescent bulb is so small that there's no immediate health risk if it's cleaned up properly.

The program's advice is to sweep up the pieces – don't vacuum them – and put them into a sealed plastic bag. Wipe the area with a damp paper towel to pick up the fine shards and particles, and put the towel into the plastic bag as well. If weather permits, open the windows to ventilate the room. Treat the bag and its contents as hazardous waste, and recycle appropriately.

Or this:

Is it true that compact fluorescent light bulbs contain harmful mercury?

Compact fluorescent lights contain a very small amount of mercury, significantly less than those in fever thermometers. This small amount of mercury slowly bonds with the phosphor coating on the lamp interior as the lamp ages, prohibiting its entry into the atmosphere. Even breaking a fluorescent bulb is not a significant health risk because the amount of mercury vapor released is so small that it dissipates into the air with a minimal chance of inhalation.

What is the proper way to dispose of burned-out compact fluorescent light bulbs?

Though compact fluorescent light bulbs are exempt from Environmental Protection Agency and State of Washington regulations, Tacoma Power recommends that you dispose of burned-out bulbs as you would batteries, motor oil or oil-based paint. City of Tacoma and Pierce County residents can dispose of household hazardous waste, including burned-out compact fluorescent light bulbs, at the City of Tacoma Landfill Household Hazardous Waste Collection Site.

Doesn't sound so scary to me. What about the overall environmental effects? Well, there's this:

Ironically, compact fluorescent bulbs are responsible for less mercury contamination than the incandescent bulbs they replaced, even though incandescents don't contain any mercury. The highest source of mercury in America’s air and water results from the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, at utilities that supply electricity. Since a compact fluorescent bulb uses 75 percent less energy than an incandescent bulb, and lasts at least six times longer, it is responsible for far less mercury pollution in the long run. A coal-burning power plant will emit four times more mercury to produce the electricity for an incandescent bulb than for a compact fluorescent.

Or this: "The very small amount of mercury in a CFL — about 5 milligrams, compared to an old-fashioned home thermometer, which had about 500 milligrams — is safe while the bulb is in operation and poses little risk even if it breaks, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."

I'd be interested in seeing more on this topic, but if CFLs were as deadly as Milloy suggests, I wouldn't expect big companies to sell them for fear that the trial lawyers would take them to the cleaners. I kind of think that Milloy is just having a bit of fun turning enviro-scare tactics back upon themselves, but I don't think there's much foundation to these worries.

MARC DANZIGER ON VIRGINIA TECH: "The students didn’t fail to act correctly by not attacking their attacker. The doctrine they were operating under — the one we have trained them in all their lives — failed them."

IN THE MAIL: Matt Margolis and Mark Noonan's Caucus of Corruption: The Truth about the New Democratic Majority.

Meet the new caucus. Same as the old caucus.

JOHN MCWHORTER:

It is reasonable to surmise that Barack Obama will be the next President.

Mr Obama has a once-in-a-lifetime charisma that Hillary Clinton could never approximate, and she also suffers from the handicap of not being black. For all of his other plusses, part of Mr Obama’s appeal lies in the fact that many whites feel that voting for a black presidential candidate would be Doing the Right Thing. Leon Wieseltier has been explicit about this; he is not unique.

Read the whole thing.

HAS BUSH TAKEN THE WRONG LESSONS FROM VIETNAM? Read this interview with Max Boot.

UPDATE: A failure of the generals? "America's generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy." Hmm. I'm not so sure, but read this and see what you think.

NIGERIA: "The government used the oil revenue, which is over two-thirds of of government income, to buy the recent elections. . . . The stolen oil money is spread around, with about ten percent of the population getting some of it, and doing what needs to be done to keep the thieving politicians in power. The majority of Nigerians get nothing, and the better armed politicians dare anyone to do anything about it. But the current government claimed to be reformers, and blamed all the former problems on corrupt military dictators." Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

JOHN TAMMES POSTS MORE news from Afghanistan that you probably missed.

THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE LOOKS AT how people are spinning Petraeus.

MORE ON MIKE GRAVEL'S sudden stardom.

M.I.T. ADMISSIONS DEAN STEPS DOWN over resume-faking scandal. "Marilee Jones, the dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, became well known for urging stressed-out students competing for elite colleges to calm down and stop trying to be perfect. Yesterday she admitted that she had fabricated her own educational credentials, and resigned after nearly three decades at M.I.T. Officials of the institute said she did not have even an undergraduate degree."

PEGGY NOONAN:

This week saw a small and telling controversy involving a mural on the walls of Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles. The mural is big--400 feet long, 18 feet high at its peak--and eye-catching, as would be anything that "presents a colorful depiction of the rape, slaughter and enslavement of North America's indigenous people by genocidal Europeans." Those are the words of the Los Angeles Times's Bob Sipchen, who noted "the churning stream of skulls in the wake of Columbus's Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria."

What is telling is not that some are asking if the mural portrays the Conquistadors as bloodthirsty monsters, or if it is sufficiently respectful to the indigenous Indians of Mexico. What is telling is that those questions completely miss the point and ignore the obvious. Here is the obvious:

The mural is on the wall of a public school. It is on a public street. Children walk by.

We are scaring our children to death. Have you noticed this? And we're doing it more and more.

Well, government-sponsored race-hatred seems bad, too. But read the whole thing.

SECRETS OF "CROWD-BUILDING," explained.

HILLARY AND HAMSHER: "Democratic activists privately questioned Clinton's decision to appear on Firedoglake because of the tarnished reputation of Jane Hamsher, one of its chief bloggers."

More here. It's a tempest in a teapot, really -- but also another reminder to bloggers who want to be political players that real political players (successful ones, anyway) are careful about the record they produce.

PATTERICO HAS MORE on the Atlanta cops charged in the Kathryn Johnston no-knock raid gone wrong.

Following up on a comment, I'd also like to know more about the judge who signed the warrant in this case.

UPDATE: Here's more from Radley Balko:

We now know that Kathryn Johnston fired only a single bullet, through the door as police were trying to break in. They responded with a storm of bullets, which apparently both wounded Johnston and the officers themselves. When they realized their fatal error, they planted cocaine and marijuana in the woman's home. They then pressured an uninvolved informant to testify to having made controlled buys at Johnston's home to cover their tracks.

The New York Times is now reporting that the officers have told federal investigators that their behavior was not out of the ordinary. That corruption, planting evidence, and giving false testimony are routine at APD. That's not surprising. The only way these officers could think they'd get away with all of this is if they were operating within a system that routinely allows for—or even encourages—such behavior. APD's focus on arrest numbers and professional rewards for the big bust apparently incentivized such short cuts.

It's also important to remember that it's possible we wouldn't know any of this were it not for the uncooperative informant who admirably refused to help the cops cover their asses.

Read the whole thing.

I'd be more impressed with the Democratic candidates if they had united in their opposition to the War on Drugs, which has done the country much more harm, over much more time, than the one in Iraq.

CLAYTON CRAMER LOOKS AT HR 297, the mental-illness reporting bill, and isn't sure why some gun-rights groups are unhappy with it.

GREENHOUSE EFFECT UPDATE:

A flock of small jets took flight from Washington Thursday, each carrying a Democratic presidential candidate to South Carolina for the first debate of the political season. . . . No one jet pooled, no one took commercial flights to save money, fuel or emissions.

All but Biden, who flew on a private jet, chartered their flights -- a campaign expense of between $7,500 and $9,000.

Couldn't they have "jet pooled" to cut down on carbon emissions? Or, you know, flown commercial with the hoi polloi? (Via Newsbusters).

UPDATE: John McGinnis thinks it would have been smart to fly commercial: "Every jet flying the
friendly skies is filled with -- Voters."

THIS DOES SEEM LIKE A RATHER LOW THRESHOLD for swooning.

Plus this: "Maybe somebody needs to explain to Greenwald what 'Trutherism' means. Hint: it ain’t a compliment." Well, in his circles it probably is. Hence the misunderstanding.

JOURNALIST AS DAFFY DUCK: But what's really "despicable" here, of course, is that it works.

April 26, 2007

MICKEY KAUS NOTES debate Laphamization at the Associated Press, but concludes that it's okay: "The one she wrote before the debate was better!"

LIVEBLOGGING THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES' DEBATE: I'd say that Mike Gravel improved his situation the most: "Gravel... that's news to me. I didn't even know he was still alive!"

Still alive! Getting that news out is an essential first step in a campaign.

UPDATE: Hey, Gravel-mania threatens to explode: "Where did this guy come from? . . . I suspect he is going to gain a LOT of attention and some popularity." It's a trend!

ANOTHER UPDATE: This rapid rise has already produced a wave of Gravel-Bashing: "I still don't like Gravel. I think he's crazy."

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you. Then they attack you. Then you win." One debate and he's already to stage three! Watch for people to start poaching his campaign staff.

MORE: A sure sign of momentum in a campaign -- pundits are starting to suck up to the candidate: "Gravel was direct and tough on the other candidates during the debate. He also certainly provided the funniest moments of the debate. We have not given him enough attention and for this we apologize. Here is a link to his campaign website."

STILL MORE: Matt Stoller hearts Mike Gravel. It's Mikementum, baby!

Dave Weigel, not so much. He thinks Obama won, even though he had the biggest gaffe.

MORE STILL: I'm surprised that TigerHawk is swimming against the tide: "Gravel is a loon, by the way. He makes Kucinich look sober as a judge."

I dunno. You gotta love this line of Gravel's: "I'm embarrassed about this Congress."

Hey, me too. Even more than the last one, and that's saying something.

Best comment yet: "President Gravel? Only on an episode of The Flintstones."

Though judging by tonight, that may be speaking too soon!

The Hotline blog: "Still unknown: What constitutes success in Iraq for Edwards, Obama and Clinton."

I think the honest answer would be would be "my election in 2008."

And here's a roundup at The Moderate Voice.

I WENT TO NASHVILLE AND BACK TODAY, for a meeting of the state committee on constitutional revision that I'm on. It was at the Capitol, and when it was over Bob Cooper, the Attorney General, took one of our out-of-state visitors on a tour. I haven't wandered the Capitol proper in quite a while, so I tagged along. Tennessee's Capitol is very pretty in an austere sort of way, and if I'd had more time -- and if I were Ann Althouse -- I'd have a lot of stunning photos. But here are a couple, anyway. It was interesting to hear people compare Capitol-building trivia, and it brought home that when the artisans who designed the chandelier in the Senate chamber put in intertwined symbols of the state, they were doing something with political, not just aesthetic, implications -- things that show even today in little bits of state pride on the part of constitutional officeholders. Federalism is built on these things, as well as on the Tenth Amendment.

The meeting was pleasant and useful, and in its informality and its matter-of-fact practicality it brought home another difference between state politics and government and those at the national level. Or maybe it's just a Tennessee thing; I don't have much experience with other states' operations.

Driving both ways today, I noticed that high gas prices still haven't induced people to slow down -- or, judging from the traffic, to drive less. What was sad was that although some of the trees are in full spring glory, many are brown from die-back induced by the late freeze. They'll bud eventually, but the huge patches of brown on the mountainsides looked like some strange disease was breaking out.

And yeah, posts continued via "scheduled posting" -- I managed to get online briefly a couple of times, but never for all that long. I like that feature.

UPDATE: Yes, it was a public meeting, though sparsely attended by the public -- I wouldn't have blogged about it otherwise. I'm just not blogging about this stuff in detail because I don't think many readers are deeply interested in updating the gubernatorial succession provisions of the Tennessee Constitution. But yes, they know about the blog -- both Gen. Cooper and Gov. Bredesen made InstaPundit jokes during the introductions.

IN THE ECONOMIST, a look at changing technology and cottage industry.

It's a good observation!

NEWSPAPERS ARE AGONIZING over whether to allow comments. LaShawn Barber has some suggestions.

EGYPT'S "DR. RUTH" SAYS: Muslims need better sex:

It took the 39-year-old mother three years of negotiations to get her show on the air. And a main reason she succeeded is that she talks only about sex allowed in the Quran -- sex between husband and wife.

But even with that guideline, it's no easy sell.

The promo for "The Big Talk" starts with Kotb saying, "Sex. Don't be afraid. Join me to talk about sex without shame."

And people are doing just that. The show is gaining in popularity throughout the Middle East. So much so that Kotb just signed with a new production company and plans to push the sexual envelope even further in her discussions.

For the moment her main advice for married couples: Have more sex.

"You have nowhere else to get your sexuality but from your spouse. It's the only source available, so it's very important."

And for the men she has some blunt advice: "You have to have foreplay with your wife and you have to have sex with her frequently, not just when you want to."

It's good advice. Read the whole thing.

J.D. JOHANNES posts another report from Iraq.

(AND STILL ANOTHER) CULTURE OF CORRUPTION UPDATE:

Democrats in Congress appear to be taking full advantage of the "pay to play" system they said led to a "climate of corruption" under Republicans, an ABC News investigation has found.

"Washington looks pretty much the same as it always did," said Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation, despite Democratic promises of reform.

Campaign finance records made public this week show Democratic congressional campaign committees taking in substantially more in contributions than their Republican counterparts.

Read the whole thing.

TIME: Was Timothy Leary right?

POLICE INDICTED in the Kathryn Johnston no-knock raid in Atlanta.

SHOCKINGLY, "CARBON CREDITS" often turn out to be utterly bogus. More thoughts here.

(ANOTHER) CULTURE OF CORRUPTION UPDATE: "House Democratic leaders are not expected to pressure embattled Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) to forfeit his lone remaining committee assignment, even as two Republican lawmakers who similarly face intense FBI scrutiny have relinquished their posts in recent days."

IN THE MAIL: David Verklin and Bernice Kanner's new book, Watch This, Listen Up, Click Here: Inside the 300 Billion Dollar Business Behind the Media You Constantly Consume. I actually managed to read a bit of this yesterday and it's very interesting. With the sea change going on in the ad market and the growth of online media, lots of people are likely to want to read this book.

BACK FROM IRAQ, Fred Kagan comments on Congress's actions. Excerpt: "I’ve been struck by the degree to which the debate in this town, in Washington, seems to be lagging behind reality in Iraq. And one would hope that with the briefings that the Congress is getting from General Petraeus and others, that we would start to catch up and realize that the world is different from the way it was in November, 2006."

I think they're more interested in November, 2008 than, well, anything else, including the welfare of the country.

TERRORIST-SUPPORTING LAWYER LYNNE STEWART has been disbarred. This is in response to her earlier conviction for providing material support to terrorists.

VIRUS WRITERS TARGETING Google's sponsored links. I never click on those anyway, which is apparently a good thing.

GEN. PETRAEUS will talk about Iraq at 10:00 EST, and it will be streamed on the Pentagon Channel.

DAVID BRODER CALLS HARRY REID The Democrats' Alberto Gonzales. That seems about right.

Broder observes: "It has been impossible for his own members, let alone the White House, to sort out for more than 24 hours at a time what ground Reid is prepared to defend."

I imagine the troops are having the same problem.

TAXPROF: OVER 450,000 FEDERAL WORKERS ARE TAX DEADBEATS.

HEH.

I HAVEN'T FOUND THE ECONOMIST'S DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA blog quite as interesting as its Free Exchange blog, perhaps because the latter is a lot closer to The Economist's core strength. But John McWhorter has been guestblogging at Democracy in America -- suggesting that maybe the editors have figured this weakness out too -- and he's made a number of interesting posts.

JULES CRITTENDEN: The people have spoken!

TONY SNOW will be returning to work next week. That's good news, though the press briefings have certainly been amusing in his absence . . . .

But then, everything's amusing in Frank J.'s world.

STEPHEN HAWKING experiences weightlessness.

And read this post on the appeal of space tourism.

CONVERTING YOUR VIDEO FILES TO FILM using an inkjet printer? Yep. (Via BoingBoing).

TUNC PRO NUNC: It's back to the future at the Supreme Court.

VLADIMIR PUTIN says he won't seek a third term:

Putin's second term in office ends in 2008, and he is constitutionally barred from running for a third. While many observers have suggested he would try to stay in office, Putin has consistently dismissed the idea and did so again Thursday.

"The next state of the nation address will be given by another head of state," he said.

He then acknowledged that many had expected this speech would be his opportunity to openly state which person he wants to follow him, but instead he drew a laugh by saying "it is premature for me to declare a political will."

Putin's compliance with the requirement is a good thing -- or, rather, his failure to do so would be the final nail in the coffin for Russian democracy. Things still aren't good, they're just not as bad as they might have been.

I AGREE WITH MATT STOLLER that carbon cap-and-trade schemes, however appealing they might sound in the abstract, are likely to be scams. If you're going to get into this game at all, a carbon tax, or an old-fashioned fossil fuel tax, is likely better. However, I think that any such tax should be revenue neutral, with offsets somewhere else so that it's obvious that it isn't just a grab for revenue with global warming as an excuse.

JEFF SOYER NOTES THAT BRIAN MONTOPOLI OF CBS is calling on the press to gin up political support for gun control by the way it reports the news.

It's just Evan Thomas's fifteen percent applied to another cause.

UPDATE: Then there's just plain old reportorial ineptitude.

JOHN HINDERAKER wonders if the Republicans might lose more seats in 2008, perhaps even enough to give the Democrats a filibuster-proof majority. It's awfully early yet, but it's certainly possible, especially given the cluelessness and self-servingness of the GOP congressional delegation to date.

Democrats -- who mostly made other issues than the war their priority in the '06 election and who lost (Ned Lamont, anyone?) when they put the war up top -- are now claiming that the elections were a mandate for surrender. Republicans may be tempted to endorse the idea that the elections were a referendum on Iraq, too, because that would get the GOP Congress off the hook for its miserable performance on, well, just about everything else. In fact, however, the elections were very close, and regardless of the war the GOP could have at least retained the Senate with only a very modest improvement in performance -- an improvement almost no one was willing to make.

And they could be doing a lot more to put the Democrats on the spot if they were willing to back up Tom Coburn's anti-pork crusading and the like, instead of being "brothers in pork" with Democratic incumbents. But the GOP delegation is, for the most part, just as corrupted as the Dems -- and they managed to get that way faster -- and there's no longer any stomach for challenging the status quo. Most of them, it seems, would rather be a fat, happy minority than do what it takes to win (or even keep) a majority. (See this about Trent Lott). And if that's what they want, that's probably what they'll get.

UPDATE: Bob Krumm writes: "My guess is that whichever side’s leader portrays himself as the most anti-status quo, will win not just the White House, but a larger majority of both houses next year."

MICKEY KAUS has questions about Unity '08.

April 25, 2007

WE KEEP HEARING THAT JOBS ARE LESS SAFE, AND LESS STABLE THAN IN THE PAST, but that doesn't seem to be the case: "The story about inequality is indisputably true. But we’re starting to learn that the second story, the one about instability, is more complicated. It may even end up being wrong. . . . Volatility may or may not have increased over the last generation, but it does not appear to have changed in a fundamental way."

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How to hang a picture.

WILL SERBIA AND RUSSIA DRAW A LINE IN THE SAND over Kosovo's independence? Spengler thinks they might, and that the consequences might include "a small shooting war." This seems like something to avoid if possible.

JOHN MCCAIN BLASTS HARRY REID: Two other Senators call for Reid to resign.

UPDATE: Much more here.

Plus, Harry Reid mythbusting. And some people seem to be losing it.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here's the roll call on the surrender vote.

A LOOK AT IRAN'S ROLE IN SUPPORTING THE INSURGENCY, from Richard Miniter: "The Islamic Republic tries to hide its involvement with 'layers and layers of intermediaries,' the head of a special Kurdish counter-terrorism service told PJM’s Richard Miniter. While this might fool the CIA, the Kurds are not misled."

OF GULFSTREAMS AND GREENHOUSES: More global-warming hypocrisy.

Plus the Prius as energy-hog beard:

The problem for most people who buy a Prius is that they have to drive it, putt-putt-putting around the city. What makes Prius so popular with the Beautiful People is that it’s just a statement. They talk Prius, and they drive Lexus.

Think about it. How many times have you ever seen a Beautiful Person on TV or in the gossip columns getting out of a Prius, as opposed to how many times you’ve read about these phonies bragging that they own one? . . .

What a Beautiful Person really needs when he buys a Prius is a second parking space at the office. Leave the Prius in the most prominent slot, and then, around the corner, park the SUV you - or your driver - really uses. . . . Another option: Solar panels on the vacation home. But the downside is that once you cop to owning a second place, the hoi polloi start asking, just how many square feet in this place?

Of course, the Lexus could be a hybrid . . . .

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: "Democrats are taking ownership of a defeat in Iraq."

REDSTATE'S JEFF EMANUEL is now reporting from Iraq.

MAKE THE DEBATE VIDEO PUBLIC: Larry Lessig has sent a letter to the RNC and DNC, which I signed on to, asking them to make the 2008 Presidential debate video available to everyone via the web.

MORE ON BEES -- though "unnatural pollination" sounds like something that James Dobson should be unhappy about . . . .

NOW THEY'RE BLOGGING AT the Library of Congress.

LET THEM EAT NOTHING: Claudia Rosett on the muted response to the North Korean famine.

DOW 13,000: Good news, I guess.

STEVEN LANDSBURG on disaster relief: "Poor people, more than most, value cheap housing. A policy of disaster relief makes cheap housing hard to find. Therefore a policy of disaster relief is likely to impose a particular burden on the poor. If you want to help poor people, eliminating federal disaster relief is a good place to start."

You'll be shocked to hear that he has more thoughts on this provocative subject in his new book.

SEND MOYERS, GUNS AND MONEY. Mortman has the best titles. . . .

UPDATE: And don't miss the comments.

A PROFILE OF PORKBUSTERS HERO TOM COBURN:

Coburn continues to make headway, if not achieve outright victories. While his campaign against the Bridge To Nowhere lost by over 60 votes, his effort to eliminate the “Railroad to Nowhere” lost by only a handful of votes, and the same with his recent effort to remove approximately $100 million in federal support for the parties’ political conventions. It is no longer possible to view his efforts as fruitless or quixotic. His strategy has been to offer amendment after amendment seeking to highlight and then remove these spending abuses, and it has brought about consequences. As Fraser describes it, “He is trying to force them on each and every vote to have an honest debate.” In many instances Coburn’s efforts are designed simply to force the Senate to follow its own rules and provide adequate time for consideration of these spending bills. According “NZ Bear,” blogger and co-founder of the Internet watchdog alliance Porkbusters, “He is the one who has been willing to stand up and just keep reminding the Congress of their responsibility to behave like adults, over and over again.”

More important, perhaps, than the daily fight over earmarks was his championing of S. 2590, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act. Co-sponsored by Barak Obama, S. 2590 passed in September 2006 and established an online, public search-engine and database to track federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and loans. Coburn says that greater transparency will bring “more accountability” and that media, watchdog groups, and political challengers will have the “tool” they never had to demonstrate the profligacy of government. As Schatz describes it, “The way to change the whole process is to change how taxpayers view it.” By exposing the details of government spending and grants, Coburn and his supporters hope to provide the public and political challengers with political ammunition to finally return rationality to the budgeting process.

Let's hope.

MICHAEL TOTTEN IS WITH THE IRAQI POLICE IN KIRKUK: He's got video, too. Excerpt:

“If America pulls out of Iraq, they will fail in Afghanistan,” Mam Rostam said.

Hardly anyone in Congress seems to consider that the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan might become much more severe if similar tactics are proven effective in Iraq.

“And they will fail with Iran,” he continued. “They will fail everywhere with all Eastern countries. The war between America and the terrorists will move from Iraq and Afghanistan to America itself. Do you think America will do that? The terrorists gather their agents in Afghanistan and Iraq and fight the Americans here. If you pull back, the terrorists will follow you there. They will try, at least. Then Iran will be the power in the Middle East. Iran is the biggest supporter of terrorism. They support Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Ansar Al Islam. You know what Iran will do with those elements if America goes away.”

Read the whole thing.

STOPPING THE NEXT PANDEMIC BEFORE IT BEGINS: Well, that's the time to stop it, of course. Cataloging viruses, as described in the linked article, is a good idea. So is the kind of open source disease surveillance described by Vernor Vinge.

FACT-CHECKING HARRY REID at Pollster.com.

UPDATE: And still more Reid fact-checking.

IN THE MAIL: Col. David Hunt's new book, On the Hunt: How to Wake Up Washington and Win the War on Terror. According to the cover blurb he wants to abolish the Department of Homeland Security, a move that I certainly have a lot of sympathy for.

OUR LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE IS OVER: Rosie O'Donnell will leave The View.

HENRY MILLER ON BIOTECH REGULATION:

Many people who use the terms "biotechnology," "genetic engineering," and "genetically modified" don't know what they're talking about. Literally. Confusion about the terminology has led to the stigmatization of superior techniques by unscrupulous NGOs and some government officials, worthless conferences and reports, and poorly conceived experiments performed in the name of "biotechnology risk assessment."

And this is costing lives. Read the whole thing.

IS THAT ALL? "Report: 80 percent of blogs contain offensive content."

But seriously, this is lame:

But what's really considered "offensive" content? A blog merely has to contain a single instance of profanity to be considered offensive, according to ScanSafe. "There were as many blogs with the 'F-word' as the word 'China'," Nadir told Techworld.

ScanSafe's larger focus is not necessarily on single instances of offensive content, but overall security and liability for employees who might get caught with undesirable content on their computers while at work.

From what I can tell, the Taliban have fled Afghanistan and now run the Human Resources and IT departments at major American corporations.

SOMETHING NICE from Southwest Airlines. I wish they flew to my town.

(MOSTLY) GOOD NEWS FOR APPLE: "Federal securities regulators said yesterday that they would bring no civil charges against Apple over the backdating of executive stock options. But they stopped short of removing the cloud that for nearly a year has hung over the company’s chief executive, Steven P. Jobs."

TM LUTAS MAKES A PREDICTION:

Out of the 18 Iraqi provinces, 3 kurdish ones have their greatest security threats being foreign incursion from Turkey and Iran. Terrorism is successfully kept out. 4 arab provinces are under local management and we rarely, if ever, do anything there. That's 7 down, 11 to go with the rest of the provinces in various stages along the road towards handover. I fully expect that when the balance is 10:8 instead of 7:11 that we're going to see a sea change in coverage because "a majority of Iraq is under local control and relatively quiet" and all the MSM is going to realize that if they don't get on the right side of this quickly, the deluge of broken credibility will very likely worsen and shorten their personal careers significantly.

I expect at least 3 more provinces to get handed over between now and the height of campaign season 2008. I'd like to think that at least 6 more would make the transition by then (obviating the need to explain Kurdistan's special situation in the stats). The defeatists have to change the natural progression of Iraqi government and security institution building and do it soon or they're going to be in deep trouble in 2008.

I certainly hope he's right.

UPDATE: Reader Kjell Hagen makes another prediction:

By summer 2008, things will be have improved considerably in Iraq, but it will not be reported. The MSM will focus on the presidential election, and whoever is in favor of the Iraq engagement will be slammed by the MSM.

By spring 2009, the MSM will report that, yes, now everything is much better in Iraq. Whoever is president, especially if he/she is a democrat, will get the credit. Bush will still be blamed.

Sounds plausible!

RICHARD MINITER REPORTS ON PAYING THE IRAQI POLICE.

SOME THOUGHTS ON TECHNOLOGY AND HOMELAND SECURITY, from Fred Thompson.

TONY BLANKLEY on hardened divisions within the western polities.

THE NEW CONGRESS, SAME AS THE OLD CONGRESS:

Another part of this thing that is worth looking at is the way Democrats kept this bill from coming to a vote . In the paragraph quoted below, the same article explains that the Democratic majority did not concede unanimous consent and thus blocked the bill from being voted on that day. The Roll Call article that is quoted explicitly states that Democrats needed more time to look over the bill, but besides that, it went down similarly to how S.223, the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act, was secretly held. . . .

Either way, as The Sunlight Foundation's Ellen Miller put it, "a hold is a hold is a hold, unless you want to debate what the definition of "is" is." And, since this holding procedure is being used by both parties to manipulate popular transparency legislation to suit the fancy of a few, it is time for the rule to be revised.

Indeed. Back before the elections, I said that the Republicans deserved to lose Congress, but the Democrats didn't deserve to win it. Sadly, that's how it's turning out.

THE CAMPAIGN TO DISCREDIT GLOBAL WARMING THEORY: Big Oil's moles are everywhere!

DISASTER AVERTED?

Students wrested a gun away from a University of Southern California student who had been asked to leave an off-campus party after threatening a young woman, police said Tuesday. Zao Xing Yang, 19, was arrested early Sunday and is being held without bail, Chief William Bratton said at a news conference.

Some students at the party, held at a student's home, overheard Yang making intimidating statements to the woman and threatening her with violence about 3 a.m. Sunday, Bratton said.

Yang began arguing with the host, who noticed Yang was holding a gun, he said.

"Several students wrestled the gun away from Yang and held him until campus security and then LAPD officers arrived," Bratton said.

Quick thinking and teamwork. Good for them. (Via The Asylum).

April 24, 2007

RADLEY BALKO:

If there's one positive that might come out of the Duke imbroglio, it's that the unusual demographics of the parties involved and alliances it spawned may mean some much-needed new scrutiny of the criminal justice system, and win welcome new advocates for reform.

Nifong is by no means the only overly aggressive prosecutor in this country. And Durham is by no means the only jurisdiction where the wrong people have been wrongly accused. As Seligmann suggested, the only real difference may have been that the Duke players had the resources to fight back. Many others don't.

Examples abound.

A 2002 audit of the crime lab in Houston, Texas, found that experts may have given "false and scientifically unsound" testimony in thousands of criminal cases. Subsequent reports showed that crime lab employees often tailored their tests to fit police theories about how a crime was committed. The city is finishing up a $5.5 million review of 2,300 cases, including death penalty cases.

In 2003, Texas Gov. Rick Perry pardoned 35 mostly black residents of Tulia, Texas, who had been prosecuted for drug crimes based on testimony from undercover police officer Tom Coleman. Coleman, once named Texas "Police Officer of the Year," was found to have manufactured evidence from whole cloth.

Just last month in Maryland, self-styled ballistics expert Joe Kopera committed suicide after it was revealed that he lied about his expertise and training. Kopera had testified in hundreds of criminal trials over 40 years, many of which may need to be reopened.

A 2005 audit found critical errors in the state of Virginia's crime lab, considered one of the best in the country. The audit found that senior-level experts in the lab were too often persuaded by political pressure to secure convictions. The audit was ordered after the exoneration of Earl Washington Jr., a man who served 17 years on Virginia's death row.

These are merely examples from the last several years, and they're by no means comprehensive. Here's hoping that the most vocal critics of Mike Nifong and the Durham justice system that relentlessly pursued the Duke lacrosse players — many of whom don't generally speak out on criminal justice issues — will see the case as more than just an example of media bias or reverse discrimination.

I've been writing about this kind of thing since the very earliest days of InstaPundit, but, I have to say, to no great effect. I'm not sure why people don't care about this more, but they don't. Perhaps they're afraid of what they'll find if they look too closely?

DON SURBER ON Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman: "Heads should roll."

RAND SIMBERG DENIES that Harry Reid is trying to help Al Qaeda: "Look, I don't think that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi objectively want Al Qaeda to win. I'm sure that they have succeeded in deluding themselves that we are the problem in Iraq. I'm also sure that they believe that this is in the near term a political winner for them, and sadly, they may be right. But they're playing a dangerous game. What if they're wrong, and the people actually reporting success in Iraq are right? They're so heavily invested in defeat now that it could actually be an electoral disaster for them next year. I certainly hope that will be the case. For me, it would be win-win--we'd have won in Iraq, and the Dems would have lost precisely because they did everything they could to prevent it from happening."

RECYCLING NUCLEAR WASTE:

Later this year, scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee hope to take a big step toward solving America's nuclear-waste woes. Pending clearance from the Department of Energy, they will demonstrate a new toxic-waste recycling process.

The aim of the demo—part of a controversial $405-million government project called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP)—is to transform nuclear leftovers into fuel for a new breed of reactors. The new reactor/fuel combo, GNEP officials say, could produce up to 100 times as much energy as conventional reactors and could generate 40 percent less waste.

One way or another, we need more nice, clean, greenhouse-friendly nuclear plants.

WE'RE NUMBER TWO!

China will pass the United States as the world's biggest source of greenhouse gasses this year, an official with the International Energy Agency was quoted as saying.

China had been forecast to surpass the U.S. in 2010, but its sizzling economic growth has pushed the date forward, the IEA's chief economist, Fatih Birol, was quoted as saying in an interview appearing in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal newspaper. . . . China is a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gasses, but is exempt from its restrictions because it is a developing country.

Will we try harder? (Via Lou Minatti).

THIS IS COOL:

For the first time astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is potentially habitable, with Earth-like temperatures, a find researchers described Tuesday as a big step in the search for "life in the universe."

The planet is just the right size, might have water in liquid form, and in galactic terms is relatively nearby at 120 trillion miles away. But the star it closely orbits, known as a "red dwarf," is much smaller, dimmer and cooler than our sun.

I suspect that we'll find more. Now for some progress on getting there. Warp drive, anyone? Faster, please . . .

NEW INFORMATION HAS ROGER SIMON backing down from his Wolfowitz criticism as the case against Wolfowitz appears shakier. Here's more from OxBlog.

LEGALIZING ABORTION in Mexico City.

MICKEY KAUS: "Obama has apparently just endorsed one of the worst ideas of Carter era liberalism, 'comparable worth,' which would have lawyers and judges deciding what every job is 'worth' according to some bureaucratic, non-market criteria that would inevitably punish 'unskilled' manual work--i.e, the very workers who are screwed the most by globalization. Are truckdrivers really paid too much?"

I think Mickey's losing enthusiasm for Obama.

A LOOK AT WHO OWNS THE RIGHTS TO THE CHO VIDEO: I'll just add this question. Given that Cho was pretty clearly insane at the time he mailed the videos to NBC -- and NBC certainly had reason to think this might be the case -- should his intention to grant NBC a license be binding as against a lawsuit from his heirs?

A LOOK AT THE FUTURE OF PLUG-IN HYBRID CARS, from the latest Popular Mechanics. Plus, a look at hybrid skepticism!

MEDIA DOUBLE STANDARDS ON THE N-WORD -- even where white people are using it. Are you surprised?

ANOTHER REPORT from J.D. Johannes.

FORGET RANDY BARNETT FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL -- here's a better idea: "While it's true that he would be far better than the AGs we've had recently, there is really only one place in government for real scholars and that's on the Supreme Court. Nominate Barnett for the Court and I'll be throwing pep rallies."

THOUGHTS ON political communications and the left-right divide.

TERROR ARRESTS IN BRITAIN. More on that here.

FINDING UNCLE LEO'S IDENTITY CARD: More Holocaust family history from Eric Muller.

BRIAN DOHERTY WRITES ON how the Right and Libertarians diverged.

CAMPAIGN FINANCE AND EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION: Some thoughts on the advantages of secrecy.

AND AN ALMOST FANATICAL DEVOTION TO THE POPE! Jan Crawford Greenburg isn't buying it.

THE POWER OF UNBELIEF.

UPDATE: Not powerful enough.

MORE FROM RAMADI: "An Iraq success story."

IN THE MAIL: David Gelernter's new book, Americanism:The Fourth Great Western Religion. Looks very interesting. I wish I'd had it while discussing "civil religion" in my Constitutional Law class.

ASTROGLIDE LEAKS CUSTOMER INFORMATION: A variety of semi-clever puns and jokes occur to me, but I'll leave them as an exercise for the reader.

DISCOVERING KRYPTONITE: Does it need a lead box?

"WHAT IS HAPPENING OVER HERE:" An email from a soldier in Iraq. "Gen Petraeus is treating the war like a counter-insurgency rather than a stability operation. . . . there is a HUGE difference between the two. . . . However, you don't see Harry Reid talking about this. When I saw what he said, it really pissed me off. That guy does not know what is going on over here because he hasn't bothered to come and find out. The truth on the ground in Al Anbar is not politically convenient for him, so he completely ignored it."

AT THE RISK OF BEING TARRED FOR TREASON LIKE HARRY REID, I'm going to declare that the war against toilet paper is already lost.

But unlike Reid and the other 76 Senators, I never voted for this one!

UPDATE: A reader suggests "smeared" instead of "tarred." In this context, all I can say is "Eww."

ANOTHER UPDATE: By the way, Sheryl Crow says the whole toilet-paper thing was tongue in cheek, though Rand Simberg isn't sure he believes her. But either way, Ed Driscoll is right -- we should thank her for injecting some much needed humor into what has otherwise been a bummer of a week.

MORE: The One Sheet to the Wind Tour. The opening act is, well, the only plausible choice . . . .

MORE STILL: Karl Bade emails:

If Sheryl Crow was joking, she was making fun of Laurie David, who is known for using recycled toilet paper. Was she making fun of Laurie David? Word is the two aren't getting along now.

Hard to imagine, that.

And reader Tom Brosz has the last word:

It says a lot about the "serious" environmental proposals that we all have to think long and hard about whether or not something like Crow's statement was a joke or not.

A few years back, I would have thought making incandescent light bulbs illegal was a joke, too.

Good point.

RICK LEE GETS UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL with a black widow.

NBC AND PBS: A study in contrasts. Though there's a common theme if you look closely.

NEVADA SOLDIERS RESPOND TO HARRY REID: And they're not happy: "'it does make it a lot harder for us to fight the enemy, but we're not losing this war.'"

Upside for Reid: At least they're not calling for him to step down, so far. But I guess that would be inappropriate anyway.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION for Sheryl Crow.

HOWARD KURTZ has a John Edwards haircut roundup. It's even turned into a unit of measurement.

I'm still trying to figure out what you get for a $400 haircut. According to some people, I need it . . . .

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: The Examiner reports that the earmark stench is getting worse:

Remember right after the November elections when the Senate’s longtime “King of Pork,” Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., promised an “earmark moratorium” on 2007 spending? The moratorium was supposed to give the new Democratic majority time to pass the promised legislation that would shine needed light on the thousands of anonymous spending measures slipped into bills by senators and congressmen. Since Byrd was about to become Appropriations Committee chairman and was well-known for directing billions of dollars in earmarks to his home state, the moratorium was seen by many congressional reformers as an encouraging sign.

Now we find that not only has the moratorium on 2007 spending bill earmarks been forgotten, senators are in the process of larding up 2008 bills as well. Both the Senate and the House have passed earmark reforms, but the Democratic leadership in both chambers is taking its time in resolving differences between the two measures. So the rules Kratz reminds senators to follow are the same ones that were in place when the GOP sowed its culture of corruption. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Read the whole thing.

TAKING THE COMFY-CHAIR REVOLUTION TO THE NEXT LEVEL: Workspace Vancouver seems like the next step after working at Starbucks -- it's a Starbucks of your own, turned into an office. Er, or something. Anyway, it seems very cool. It seems to me that this is the kind of thing that could easily franchise, or spread in some other fashion.

Here's a video.

ROBERT COX says that the right is losing the online arms race.

OFF MESSAGE:

The president of the Iraqi Red Crescent, the only relief organization operating in Iraq, is calling on the Democratic-led Congress to rethink its troop withdrawal strategy and recognize that Iraq suffers from a worsening humanitarian crisis. . . .

The Iraqi Red Crescent Society or Organization, as it is often referred to, is an auxiliary arm of the Iraqi government and is a member of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Insisting that he is not a politician, Hakki — a U.S. citizen who spends most of his time in Iraq’s red zones — is pushing for a time-out in what he calls the “partisan squabble” over the U.S. troop withdrawal timetable.

Via Don Surber, who asks: "It is important to remember that Reid voted for this war, when that was popular. Now that it is unpopular, he seeks to shrug it as if it were last year’s hot new dance craze. . . . What sort of tree do you plant as penance for turning your back on 24 million people?"

SOME UNUSED Sheryl Crow headlines.

STEVEN LANDSBURG: "So if I could make just one change in the American political system, it would be to give each voter two votes in every congressional election. You'd get one vote to cast in your own district and another to cast in the district of your choice. When a congressman from West Virginia funnels taxpayers' money from fifty states to his home district, I want him to face the prospect that taxpayers from fifty states will share their feelings with him on election day."

I like this.

MICKEY KAUS: "Affirmative action may be joining gun control on the list of liberal issues Dem candidates don't push very hard because they want to win."

MORE ON THE VANISHING BEES: Cellphones aren't being blamed, but there's mad bee syndrome.

SIGNS OF THE END TIMES: A sex doll for dogs.

April 23, 2007

HERE ARE SOME MORE PICTURES FROM CAMPUS: I headed over to the library to check the Freud quote (turns out to be misattributed -- see below) and I had my camera with me, so I took a few pictures.

I also got a few shots inside the palatial Starbucks that's inside the palatial main library. Coffee, pastries, comfy chairs, wi-fi. What more could you want?

Oh, yeah, computers. They even have loaner laptops if you forgot yours. That's a nice touch, I think.

But while the usual cluster of people was studying in the library -- finals are coming -- more seemed to be outside enjoying the nice weather, which -- thanks to global coldening -- we haven't had enough of this spring. I wish I'd gotten to enjoy it more myself.

UPDATE: John Marcoux emails: "Your new campus pics are great. Were they taken with your new Sony?"

Yes, they were taken with this one. It's tiny, so it goes everywhere. And it seems to me that the colors are better than on the old camera.

NOW IT'S DAVID BRODER SUGGESTING THAT HARRY REID SHOULD GO: He calls him a "bumbling embarrassment."

Well, I guess Joe Lieberman can fire him if he wants to . . . .

UPDATE: Heh.

ANOTHER UPDATE: "Fortunately none of this matters."

MAX BOOT REPORTS FROM RAMADI and elsewhere in Iraq.

IS FRANCE DOOMED? A discussion at PostGlobal.

MSNBC QUOTES A "RETIRED ATF AGENT" but doesn't mention that he's a leader of an anti-gun group.

Not improving their credibility.

R.U. SIRIUS INTERVIEWS BRUCE SCHNEIER ON SECURITY:

I think we should ratchet passenger screening down to pre-9/11 levels. I like seeing positive bag matching. That’s something that was done in Europe for decades. The U.S. airlines screamed and screamed and refused to do it, and now they are.

Really, I would take all the extra money for airport security and have well-trained guards, both uniformed and plainclothes, walking through the airports looking for suspicious people. That’s what I would do. And I would just give back the rest of the money. If we secure our airport and the terrorists go bomb shopping malls, we’ve wasted our money. I dislike security measures that require us to guess the plot correctly because if you guess wrong, it’s a waste of money. And it’s not even a fair game. It’s not like we pick our security, they pick their plot, we see who wins. The game is we pick our security, they look at our security, and then they pick their plot. The way to spend money on security – airport security, and security in general — is intelligence investigation and emergency response. These are the things that will be effective regardless of what the terrorists are planning.

I think that Schneier -- who's an occasional correspondent here -- is right about the above, and much else. Read the whole thing.

WHEN MASS KILLERS meet armed resistance. (Via Gail Heriot).

MATTHEW YGLESIAS MOVES to The Atlantic Monthly.

SHERYL CROW AND HER TOILET PAPER: I think this is an example of "negative branding." As I drove home, I heard a local DJ saying that no one will ever be able to listen to her music without thinking of butt-wiping, and then speculating that maybe Lance Armstrong had left her because "she wasn't diligent enough with the paperwork." That was the first of many similar jokes.

I don't think it was part of a well-thought-out PR strategy. . . .

FLYING CARS!

"ALL I WANNA DO, is wipe my bum."

A LOOK AT kleptocracy and politics in Romania.

OKAY, I'M POSTING THIS AGAIN before moving it to the sidebar. If you've installed compact fluorescent bulbs, why not join and note it here? I promise I won't be asking anyone to go without toilet paper.

If you want to join, go here.

D FOR DEFEATISM: Another call for Harry Reid to step down, from Investor's Business Daily:

In aiding and comforting the enemy in wartime, Reid has betrayed the office he holds, shamed the Nevadans he represents and made the Democratic Party he leads synonymous with surrender. There is one way he can repair the damage he's done to the nation: step down.

I don't see Democrats jumping onboard with outrage here the way Republicans did over Trent Lott's racial statements. But I suppose I could be wrong.

BOWLING FOR VIRGINIA TECH: Is it really about class envy?

3 TRACTOR TRAILERS, 4 BUSES, 6 CARS: Sheryl Crow's going to have to do without toilet paper for a long time to offset that.

AN IPOD AND AN AK-47: Equipped for anything!

MICHAEL BARONE REPORTS ON what's happening with troop funding.

What's curious is that congressional Democrats don't seem much interested in what's actually happening in Iraq. The commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, returns to Washington this week, but last week Pelosi's office said "scheduling conflicts" prevented him from briefing House members. Two days later, the members-only meeting was scheduled, but the episode brings to mind the fact that Pelosi and other top House Democrats skipped a Pentagon videoconference with Petraeus March 8. How long this fight will go on is unclear. Some Democrats predict that it will go on for months. But their dilemma remains the same. They want to be seen as acting to end the war. But they dare not be seen as not funding the troops.

Read the whole thing. The goal, I think, is to ensure that the war is seen as a failure, but to make sure that Democrats don't get blamed.

BILL KRISTOL: "What Harry Reid said is much more disgraceful than anything Trent Lott said. And I do think Democrats should ask Harry Reid [to] step down."

PRAISE FOR BILL RICHARDSON:

The other day, I turned on the radio in my car and heard someone discussing some important foreign policy issue, and I was impressed by his intelligence and expertise. After the segment ended, I was amazed to hear it was Bill Richardson. I hadn't been able to tell that I was listening to a presidential candidate.

But that last sentence is pretty damning for the political system as a whole, isn't it?

IRANIAN POLITICS: Interesting.

IN THE MAIL: Frank Tipler's The Physics of Christianity. Blurb: "The relationship between science and religion has long been a tenuous one. Some have worked to put these disciplines in 'dialogue' with each other, while others have dismissed any possibility of a collegial relationship. To his credit, Tipler, professor of mathematical physics at Tulane University, attempts the former. He proposes that Christianity can be studied as a science, and its claims, if true, can be empirically proven."

I haven't read his previous book, The Physics of Immortality, which was well received, but I did like The Anthropic Cosmological Principle.

THE ROUGH DRAFT of the rough draft of history? The Memphis Commercial Appeal is liveblogging the John Ford corruption trial.

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE DUNCAN HUNTER is guest-posting on pork over at PorkBusters.

MUSLIM CLERIC WANTS AYAN HIRSI ALI KILLED:

Imam Fouad ElBayly, president of the Johnstown Islamic Center, was among those who objected to Hirsi Ali's appearance.

"She has been identified as one who has defamed the faith. If you come into the faith, you must abide by the laws, and when you decide to defame it deliberately, the sentence is death," said ElBayly, who came to the U.S. from Egypt in 1976.

When you come into the United States you must abide by the laws and customs that prevail here. You're supposed to leave this kind of medieval idiocy behind. If you keep it up, don't be surprised if you get thought of as some sort of medieval idiot.

BILLIONS OF BULBS: So I've joined the CFL awareness program, and there's a page where InstaPundit readers can record their bulb purchases. Here's the calculator, which as I post this contains only the 20 bulbs I've replaced.

If you want to join, go here.

As I've said before, whether you believe in anthropogenic global warming or not, it makes sense to cut back on burning fossil fuels, for reasons of geopolitics as well as general cleanliness. That's how I see it, anyway!

UPDATE: Nice work -- the InstaPundit group is now the largest on OBB. Short of getting Laurie David to fly commercial, this is as big an accomplishment as I can imagine.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Bumped to the top -- I'll stick this widget in the sidebar later. For now, sign up!

MORE "SQUIDWARD" than SpongeBob, if you ask me: "He is well-educated, knows his history, and has a strong anti-capitalist bent."

MORE CELEBRITY GREENHOUSE HYPOCRISY:

Laurie David, the producer of "An Inconvenient Truth" and global warming activist, told Texas A&M students to change their "individual behavior" in order to consume fewer resources and to help battle global warming. As an employee of Easterwood Airport, I would like to point out that Mrs. David flew to our campus in a luxurious private jet, which could be seen from 10 miles away due to the thick plume of smog it left in its wake. I am neither denying nor confirming the epidemic of global warming, I am simply pointing out that hypocrites such as Mrs. David don't care about the environment, only their own political agendas. This is proven time and again by these celebrities' and lobbyist's "do as I say, not as I do" attitude.

We need a database of private-jet-flying celebrities. Can that be created from publicly available information?

But wait, there's more:

Even worse is David's chic but hypocritical environmentalism at her summer home in Martha's Vineyard. She was issued a "notice of apparent violations" for building a 26-foot-long barbecue station, stone-and-concrete bonfire pit, and outdoor theater on an environmentally sensitive patch of their 14-acre North Road property without the proper permits. They were also cited for tearing up protected vegetation to make way for a lush, sodded lawn, among other crimes against nature.

The commission has since ordered her to remove the offending structures and restore the area to its previous state. All these violations were allegedly done to prepare for a political fundraiser hosted by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (another faux Green). Alas, there's no such thing as cheap environmentalism on the Vineyard.

Laurie David has been labeled a "Gulfstream liberal" by Eric Alterman, himself a proud member of the Left and a regular columnist for the Nation. He recognizes that Ms. David's brand of environmentalism is nothing more than a facade, a distraction from the financially secure yet intellectually boring life of the fabulously wealthy. But this hobby has dire consequences for the rest of us.

Well, some of them are dire. The rest provide a good, hearty laugh.

MEGAN MCARDLE ON COPYCAT VIOLENCE:

In the wake of the Virginia tech murders, there has been a lot of editorialising about gun control and mental health interventions. But I haven't found a single editorial addressing one factor we know creates these mass murders: reporting on the mass murders. In the next few weeks and months, even over the next few years, expect to see copycat killings inspired by Cho's actions. The more saturated the media coverage, the more such events we are likely to get. But as far as I know, few papers have taken to advocating that we cut down on news coverage of these events.

That might cost them money.

UPDATE: Howard Kurtz:

I have rarely seen the kind of angry eruption that followed. Friends and family of the Virginia Tech victims were furious, but so too were millions of Americans who saw the news outlets as giving Cho precisely the kind of notoriety he had been seeking, in precisely the way he had taped it. Why give this madman the posthumous satisfaction? Why immortalize his vicious acts? Why encourage potential copycats? Why take the focus off the 32 innocent people whose lives were snuffed out? (None of the three newsmagazines, interestingly enough, put Cho's image on the cover.)

Fortunately the networks quickly dialed back on the use of the video -- in part, I believe, because they were taken aback by the intensity of the reaction.

Kurtz goes on to suggest, though, that the alternative was not covering things. But that's simplistic. There's coverage and there's coverage. The coverage we got was screaming, pandering, ratings-bait. NBC could have presented the material later, and in a more somber fashion. They could have put the video online instead of broadcasting it in primetime. The reason why people were upset is that the coverage was exploitative.

I also have to disagree with Kurtz's follow-on:

The media proved, as they did in the days after 9/11, that they excel at covering big, breaking news, freed from the need to pump up a minor melodrama involving Laci or Natalee or Anna Nicole and imbue it with national significance.

Actually, the 9/11 coverage was bad -- and don't get me started on the Katrina coverage, which as Newsday veteran Lou Dolinar noted probably cost lives with its overhyped false reports of snipers shooting at rescuers etc. After every big event, members of the press congratulate each other on their coverage. But in fact, it's just Anna Nicole Smith with a bigger body count.

THE ECONOMIST: "Innumeracy, thy name is New York Times reporter."

Apparently, reports of a rise in infant mortality in the South are not all the NYT claims.

J.D. JOHANNES, whose documentary Outside the Wire is excellent, is back in Iraq and blogging. He observes from Fallujah: "Just back inside some civilized wire (Camp Fallujah) and am reading Harry Reid's declaration then track back on the war in Iraq being lost. The odd thing--is that I think there are parts of Al Anbar province where the war may be over and we just don't realize it." His post title: Doesn't look lost to me.

MICKEY KAUS: "Still no Democratic presidential contender tapping anti-legalization sentiment on immigration. You'd think someone would seize this potentially vote-rich position. Washington Times speculates that someone could be ... Al Gore."

I hope he runs. We need a tough guy on the Democratic side. Plus, if he doesn't we might get Lou Dobbs instead . . . .

April 22, 2007

EARTH DAY CONTRARIANISM from The Fat Guy.

A LOOK AT Rachel Carson's legacy.

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL DEMONSTRATES HIS IGNORANCE ABOUT FIREARMS AND FIREARMS LAW, but his lack of knowledge doesn't stand in the way of strong opinions! Video here.

Really, this kind of ignorance is inexcusable, at least among people who pretend that their opinions matter. It's like commenting on sex education when you don't know which bodily parts go where.

UPDATE: A commenter observes: "This sort of cluelessness would be laughed off the set of any sports panel show. Why do we tolerate it in our political discussion?"

You'd think the McLaughlin Group would set a higher standard.

MORE: Reader Michael Kemp notes that Cathy Seipp had Lawrence O'Donnell figured out years ago.

ERIC POSNER: "Liberal democracies, not activists and international law, protect human rights."

HARRY REID GETS HAMMERED IN HIS HOMETOWN PAPER: "The Democratic strategy to use the ongoing violence in Iraq to their political advantage in the run-up to the 2008 elections requires some skill and nuance. But it's growing harder to believe Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- Nevada's own -- actually possesses those skills."

Via Don Surber, who comments: "By the way, Reid was among the 77 senators who voted to send the troops into Iraq. It was popular then. Now that it no longer is popular, he opposes the war. Support the troops? He exploited them."

THOUGHTS ON CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND "SAY ON PAY" from Professor Bainbridge.

STOP COMING TO WORK AND SAVE THE PLANET:I've written on this topic before. And Rep. Frank Wolf has been pushing the idea too. But a lot of employers don't like telecommuting for various good -- and not-so-good -- reasons.

Then there's always the prospect of losing weight: "How much is one's carbon footprint increased by the consumption of food? Isn't everyone who is overweight overconsuming? I'd like to see a number representing the environmental damage we do for each excess pound we carry. . . . It's a serious matter that's got to be at least at the level of leaving the wrong kind of light bulbs on when you're out of the room. Plus, it might help people lose weight if they could reenvision their problem in terms of environmental responsibility. And if you're going to say to me that it's bad to shame people into good behavior, then are you against all the other shaming we are subjected to about the environment?" On the other hand, if you're fat aren't you just sequestering carbon?

Let's start with the telecommuting. More thoughts on that here.

UPDATE: Reader John McGinnis emails:

Key component being missed in the whole discussion -- the inability of management to match deliverables with work. I've worked in the IT business for 30 years in all that time management in some 10 firms have never been able to measure my productivity or those of my peers. As a consequence rewards go to the suckups. Here is a classic difference. I can setup a trip approved by management and rack up $5k in expenses in Chicago for 4 days. That will be most likely considered a 'success'. However if I was to suggest that I need 4 days of privacy away from phones and interruptions to get a project done it is reviewed with a great deal of scrutinty. Management has to get over thier fears and come up with a reasonable objective measurement system that works.

Yeah, I had some related thoughts on that phenomenon here.

"END THE WAR:" Right message, wrong address. But it's all about that message control.

THOUGHTS ON the war, politics, and message control, from The Mudville Gazette. And don't miss the "key message" at the end.

MARK STEYN: "To promote vulnerability as a moral virtue is not merely foolish. Like the new Yale props department policy, it signals to everyone that you're not in the real world. The 'gun-free zone' fraud isn't just about banning firearms or even a symptom of academia's distaste for an entire sensibility of which the Second Amendment is part and parcel but part of a deeper reluctance of critical segments of our culture to engage with reality."

UPDATE: More thoughts on the perversity of treating helplessness as a virtue.

FRENCH ELECTION RESULTS ARE IN: Fausta has been liveblogging. Nidra Poller -- who predicted the outcome pretty well -- is commenting, too.

IN BRITAIN, WASTING AWAY: "A third of women graduates will never have children, research has concluded. The number of highly educated women who are starting families has plummeted in the past decade, according to findings that provide the most detailed insight yet into education and fertility."

UPDATE: "The future belongs to those who show up for it."

ONE BILLION BULBS: An energy-saving initiative that's worth your attention.

And they're not just for the utility closet, either!

Plus, compact fluorescent bulbs compared.

A LOOK AT FAKE NGOs: NGOs offer power without accountability. Why wouldn't governments get into the game?

AT POPULAR MECHANICS, a look at what should be in your home toolbox.

I'm not sure it's quite the kind of thing they're talking about, but I'd hate to do without this.

Some earlier toolblogging, here.

UPDATE: Some more thoughts on tools. They're getting better and cheaper!

THE LOGJAM ON IMMIGRATION AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL has produced record amounts of state legislation on the subject. There's an employer-sanctions bill moving in Tennessee:

Senate Bill 1870 by Sen. Jack Johnson (R-Brentwood) passed the Senate on Thursday by 27-2.

Known as the �Employer Responsibility in Hiring Practices Act�, the bill requires employers to use the Employment Eligibility Verification Basic Pilot Program to ensure that new hires are eligible to legally work in the United States.

The program is a web-based system that is operated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Here's a report from the National Conference of State Legislatures on immigration bills across the country.

WERE THE VIRGINIA TECH SHOOTINGS a sign of "the crisis of young males in a feminised society?" I'm skeptical.

TIM BLAIR is back from hiatus.

UPDATE: Via Blair, quote doctoring!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Tim Lambert responds to the charges of quote-doctoring, though he acts as if they originate with me instead of their actual source. Is that "link-doctoring?" I'm just enjoying the show from the sidelines.

IT'S EARTH DAY, "the Festivus of the environmental movement."

And yes, I still have the unpowered push mower. Works great!

A LOOK AT EUROPEAN SCHIZOPHRENIA over gun control. Frankly, schizophrenia is an improvement over monomania, in this case . . . .

UPDATE: This, on the other hand, looks more like mental retardation . . . .

ARE THE DEMOCRATS IN DANGER OF LOSING THE BLACK VOTE?

That's what Don Surber says, inspired by Angela McGlowan's new book, Bamboozled. It's an interesting argument, but it would be more persuasive if the Republicans were smarter.

THE PLANET IS SAFE: The Eco-Socialites are on the case. But not too much:

Still, she has no plans to reduce the family’s significant carbon footprint by, say, selling the Manhattan second home. “I’m not a perfect person,” she said. “I’m not the greenest woman in America.” And there was scant indication that other guests, most of whom, presumably, knew their way up the steps of a private jet, were contemplating major lifestyle cutbacks. Glancing about the room, Ms. Barnett said, “We aren’t all going to move to one-bedroom apartments.” . . . She plans to practice conservation, to a point. Energy-saving light bulbs are fine — for the utility closet, perhaps. In other rooms, “they don’t give a very pretty light,” she said.

That's for the little people.

THE INSTAWIFE ON THE VTECH SHOOTINGS: Video at the link. (Click the camera icon at the upper right). Or click here.