May 05, 2007

SOME PRETTY AMAZING TORNADO VIDEO:

LOTS OF REPORTING FROM THE MILBLOGS CONFERENCE at Gateway Pundit.

President Bush made an appearance, too. Perhaps this will cool the military's enthusiasm for shutting down milblogs. Perhaps not. (Via Jules Crittenden).

MORE ON EGYPT'S BLOG CRACKDOWN: "Initial ambivalence on the part of government security agents changed in November, said Mr Zarwan, when a cellular phone video appeared on dozens of Egyptian blogs showing two police officers apparently sodomising a detainee with a rod. A public outcry ensued and the officers are being tried for torture. Hossam Hamalawy, who writes a Cairo-based blog called 3Arabawy, said that, despite the crackdown, the bloggers are growing bolder."

ZAWAHIRI: One percent of the way to his goal. Looking at Zawahiri's quota for American casualties in Iraq, Don Surber is not impressed: "At this rate, al-Qaeda will meet its goal . . . in about 2353. I’ll be 400 years old then."

MORE ON Islamists in the Balkans. "The ominous presence of Wahhabi missionaries, financiers, terror recruiters, and other mischief-makers bespeaks a fresh offensive in that tormented land."

Our "friends" the Saudis. This needs to stop, or be stopped.

THE WASHINGTON POST SAYS DEMOCRATS' MOMENTUM IS STALLING: "Not a single priority on the Democrats' agenda has been enacted, and some in the party are growing nervous that the 'do nothing' tag they slapped on Republicans last year could come back to haunt them."

MORE CLAIMS THAT GEORGE TENET isn't telling the truth.

Well, CIA directors are supposed to be good at lying. But then, they're supposed to be good at keeping secrets, too.

INTERNET STEALTH CANDIDACY, CONT'D: Mickey Kaus: "Thompson could have given a post-debate interview to any news organization in the country. He picked Breitbart.com."

IF YOU HAVEN'T DONE IT ALREADY, please take my reader survey. There are a lot of questions, but you can skip any you find too intrusive, and quit whenever you get bored. Though I admit that I'm curious to know the average number of tattoos and piercings among InstaPundit readers.

MARK STEYN: "If George Bush put a microchip in your garbage under the Patriot Act, there'd be mass demonstrations across the land. But do it in the guise of saving the planet and everyone's fine with it."

WAS THE L.A. COURT too hard on Paris Hilton?

CHINESE EXPORTS ABOUT TO PLUMMET? Reader Tom Holsinger thinks that's quite possible in light of stories like this one: From China to Panama, a Trail of Poisoned Medicine. With this and the melamine scandal, there are certainly going to be reasons to avoid foods and pharmaceuticals from China.

ADDICTED TO SUSHI: It certainly looks like a delicious spread.

And since they've got sushi video, here's some from my own local place. Is the sushi at the other place better -- or is it just the adjectives in the report?

IT SEEMS LIKE OUR EFFORT TO FREE THE DEBATES VIDEO has succeeded.

LOU DOBBS SAYS THE U.S. COULD DEPORT ALL ILLEGAL ALIENS if it really wanted to. He'll say more about that on 60 Minutes tomorrow night.

Will he run for President? He's sounding like it, and as Mickey Kaus has noted, there's an immigration gap on the Democratic side that leaves room for a candidate like Dobbs.

GARDEN & GUN MAGAZINE: The Insta-Wife likes the idea. but as she notes, some people don't.

NEWSTRUST is an experiment in rating and ranking journalism that goes way beyond sites like Digg or Slashdot. The folks running it are afraid their readership is leaning left, and hope that having InstaPundit readers join up will even things out.

There's a special signup page for InstaPundit readers, so if this appeals to you give it a try.

A LOOK AT Al Qaeda in Bosnia.

DOUG FEITH reviews George Tenet's book for the Wall Street Journal. But this is a link to the free version on Feith's website. The concluding paragraph is quite amusing.

It seems clear that the CIA wasn't fully trusted, and even clearer that it shouldn't have been. I don't think that Tenet's book will do much to improve matters.

RANDY NEAL: "Everything you wanted to know about Compact Fluorescent Bulbs, including the mercury problem."

INSTAPUNDIT'S ISTANBUL CORRESPONDENT CLAIRE BERLINSKI WRITES ON TURKEY AND ISLAM in the Washington Post:

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded the Turkish Republic in 1923, imposed a particularly strict secularism on Turkish society, banning religion from the public sphere. In recent weeks, demonstrators have taken to the streets in massive numbers in support of Kemalist secularism. Westerners watching the footage may be tempted to sigh with approval, imagining this as an outpouring of sympathy with liberal Enlightenment values.

They would be mistaken.

Read the whole thing, which offers a lot of useful insights not found much elsewhere.

FIGHT THE PATRIARCHY: "Saudi Women, Oppressed by Husbands, Turn to Stripping in Internet Chat Rooms in Search of 'Admiration.'"

OVER AT POPULAR MECHANICS, they're doing abusive lab testing of lawn mowers. In this case, though, I think it's the operator who was being abused some of the time.

Still, the unpowered reel mower that they test -- it's very similar to the one that I own -- gets high marks:

This archaic, human-powered technology still has its strengths. At a run, it was faster than the walk-behind mower. It was the most maneuverable and lightest machine, and the easiest to store in a crowded garage. The sweat level was high, but it scored well on moral superiority: No emissions, little noise, and the only fuel to buy was Gatorade. Big complaint: It rolls over weeds without cutting them — a real drawback at my place.

That is the main drawback, one that I deal with by using one of these. Another advantage of the unpowered mower is that you can start your kids mowing with them earlier -- my daughter mowed her first lawn at the age of 9. And the PopMech advice to wear earplugs when using any kind of power mower is good advice -- I've done that since I was a teenager (also for live music and shooting), and my hearing remains surprisingly good.

And they're right that this is good up to about .7 acres. More than that and I'd want something I could ride.

UPDATE: While we're on the subject, here's a list of must-have gardening tools -- though I wouldn't agree with all the choices, it's got some interesting stuff. And -- timely enough -- a list of items aimed at gardening moms.

I confess, however, that I continue to be unhealthily fascinated with the robot lawn mower. But then, who wouldn't be?

THE MILBLOGS CONFERENCE IS UNDERWAY -- there's a live stream of the proceedings here.

"I'VE NEVER CASUALLY RUN FOR ANYTHING:" An extended video interview with Fred Thompson on Breitbart TV.

MORE UGLY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE KATHRYN JOHNSTON SHOOTING: This wasn't the first incident, and the response of local officials is unimpressive:

You'd think that everyone in the chain of command in Atlanta would be looking for ways to prevent more botched raids and more unnecessary violence. Nope. It's all ass-covering and buck-passing. . . . No question these cops were particularly dirty. But this is a systemic problem driven by bad policy. And if you don't fix it, Mr. Fowler, you're going to have more dead innocents, more dead nonviolent offenders, and more dead cops.

Meanwhile--and I really can't believe this--the officers who killed Kathryn Johnston are worried about their pensions.

They ought to be worried about a lot more than that.

BLOG CAMPAIGN POWER: A myth?

IT'S NO SECRET THAT YOUTUBE IS OFTEN TOO QUICK to take down videos in response to complaints:

Want a video removed from YouTube? Send along a fake takedown notice pretending to be from the copyright holder. At least, it’s a prank that worked for a 15 year old from Perth, Australia, who sent a signed form to YouTube pretending to be from the Australian Broadcasting Company. The form requested the takedown of hundreds of clips from “The Chaser’s War on Everything”.

YouTube not only reacted, but sent warnings to all the uploaders saying their accounts would be deleted if they persisted. As it turns out, the ABC actually encourages the spread of Chasers clips, since they consider the comedy series to be a good promotion for the channel’s content.

YouTube's fear of controversy has been exploited by others, and many folks on the right think that it's especially quick to take down videos charged with being politically incorrect. The response is Qube TV.

This seems very constructive to me. YouTube was in first, but there are lots of competitors (I use MotionBox because it has better video quality). Instead of complaining and demanding regulation, just go into competition. The barriers to entry aren't that high, and that's how markets are supposed to work.

UPDATE: Reader Jim Ashmore writes:

What I find interesting is the contrasting response to effective information outlets. Those on the right bristled at liberal media domination. What did they do? They went out and built competing outlets such as talk radio and Fox News. And what was the reaction by the left to the dominant effectiveness of conservative talk radio? The attempts to force equal time via the a revived Fairness Doctrine. They have been thus-far ineffective, but watch for its revival under a Democrat administration. Liberals also want to shut down Fox so they can re-dominate television news. I find it interesting that 7 of the 8 major news outlets are slanted to the left and yet, liberals want it 7 of 7 (or more likely 1 of 1).

That is why I find it gratifying to see that conservatives countered YouTube's bias by creating their own internet video network instead of whining like little cry babies. Bravo to them.

Indeed. Though to be fair, it's not so much that YouTube is biased, as that it's limp in the face of pressure from whatever quarter, and the lefty (and Islamist) crowds have organized to take advantage of that.

UPDATE: Bob Krumm, however, is underwhelmed.

May 04, 2007

DEBUNKING SOME GUN-CONTROL STATISTICS, at BoingBoing.

PARANOIA STRIKES DEEP.

FRED THOMPSON'S SPEECH: The prepared text.

"LAMBERTED:" John Berlau responds to criticism.

J.D. JOHANNES BLOGS FROM IRAQ:

Ah yes, just 7 months ago Al Anbar was "lost."

Amidst my travels to neighborhood watch centers and police stations where local Sunni Muslims who have porn on their cell phones are playing hard ball against AQIZ types who would ban porn on cell phones I forgot all about this article in the WaPo last September.

Anbar is so "lost" now politically that there is a waiting list for anbaris to join the IA and IP.

It is so lost, that in the AO I hope to visit next the local Sheiks have declared war on AQIZ and the neighboring tribe supporting AQIZ.

It is so lost, the local neighborhood watch centers deliver captured IEDs to Marine Combat Outposts.

It is so wildly stinking lost that...wait, it is not lost.

In fact, the situation has flipped so much in 7 months that the heavy lifting in Al Anbar may be coming to a close--the heavy lifting being the political work of flipping the tribes to support the coalition and take charge of their own security.

He'll be talking about this on Hannity & Colmes tonight, in just a few minutes.

UPDATE: Oops -- I misread the email. The post is J.D.'s, but it's David Chavarria, the executive producer of Outside the Wire, their documentary.

And wow, Alan Colmes is acting really defensive, while Chavarria is really calm and informational. Chavarria explained what the troops think, as shown in the documentary, Colmes started arguing with him, and Chavarria just calmly explained that he wasn't arguing politics, he was reporting what the troops said.

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE ON LOUSY PACKAGING:

I've been opening a bunch of new electonic gizmos today, all of which came in those damnable plastic clamshells. Naturally, my hands are now covered with small cuts. I got off lucky, however, compared to some victims of the packaging industry. Did you know that "injuries from plastic packaging resulted in 6,400 visits to emergency rooms in 2004"?!

I'm not usually a big fan of Trial Lawyers Inc., but if somebody were to bring a class action against the manufacturers of plastic clamshells on behalf of all of us who have been wounded by them over the years, I'd sign up in a minute.

I hate those things, which are a subspecies of packaging demonstrating that the manufacturers don't really care about their customers. See also CD and DVD packaging . . . .

A LOOK AT NANOTECHNOLOGY IN RUSSIA:

Of the many questions that must be answered about molecular manufacturing, one of the most important is: Who will attain the technology first?

It matters a great deal if this powerful and potentially disruptive new manufacturing technique is developed and controlled by aggressive military interests, commercial entities, Open Source advocates, liberal democracies, or some combination thereof. How each of those disparate groups, with different priorities and motivations, plan to use and (maybe) share the technology is an issue that bears serious investigation. That's a major purpose behind CRN's project to create a series of scenarios depicting various futures in which molecular manufacturing could be developed.

One likely player in this high-stakes, high-tech drama is Russia. . . .

In summary, it looks like: A) Russia will spend huge amounts of money over the next several years in an effort to become a world player in nanotech development; B) at least in the early stages, that spending will focus mostly on early-generation nanoscale technologies, and not on molecular manufacturing; and C) this announcement, and the language used in making it, would suggest that an arms race built around nano-enabled weapons is more likely now than it was before.

Just one more item to brighten your weekend.

UPDATE: An upbeat take from Dave Schuler.

MICHAEL YON ON THE SURGE, interviewed from Iraq on this week's Blog Week in Review. Plus, his thoughts on the Army's iffy relationship with milbloggers.

THE FOLKS AT BLOGADS are doing their annual reader survey -- I still participate even though I don't use blogads any more, because it produces lots of useful information. So please do me a favor and take a few minutes to fill out their online form. The survey's a bit long, but you can quit anytime you get bored -- it's just the first few pages that are really important. The stuff about your favorite booze, etc., is less so.

Please take my blog reader survey!

HOW'S THE ARMY DOING? A summary of the Austin Bay / Phil Carter debate.

I'll just add that notwithstanding the reassurances we got from (then) Army Secretary Francis Harvey, I remain concerned that we're not investing enough in recruiting, maintenance, etc. for the long term, despite a long term conflict.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, on a sort-of-related topic, here's the latest on the Army / Milblogs issue.

RUNNING A STEALTH CAMPAIGN via the blogosphere.

A LOOK AT MERCURY AND COMPACT FLUORESCENT BULBS, from Snopes.

BLOG COMMENT OF THE DAY: "As Time’s 2006 Person of the Year, I have to say I’m deeply disappointed that Time has sunk to such sensational and politicized levels. Would someone please tell me who I should contact at Time to give back my award?"

Heh.

SCANDAL IN CANADA? "Bev Oda, the Canadian minister in charge of copyright, has been caught taking funds from the entertainment companies she is supposed to regulate."

IT'S ANOTHER EPISODE OF THE CORN & MINITER SHOW, with Richard Miniter back from Iraq reporting on the Iraqi military, and complaining about "the sheer amount of inertia and bureaucratic red tape inside the Green Zone," and a special surprise guest.

ANOTHER SMALL BUT SIGNIFICANT STEP FORWARD FOR CIVIL RIGHTS:

Law-abiding citizens will be able to use deadly force in self-defense in more places under legislation that unanimously passed the state Senate Thursday and is on its way to becoming law.

Currently, Tennesseans can use deadly force when faced with a threat of death or serious injury in their own homes. The bill approved by the Senate Thursday and by the House last week extends those areas to include all homes and vehicles, regardless of who owns them.

Another bill involving the use of weapons also got the nod this week. That bill would prevent the governor or any local official from confiscating weapons or restricting their sale or transportation during a state of emergency or disaster.

Police confiscated guns in New Orleans during the violent aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, sparking concern among gun-rights advocates who said it left citizens helpless against marauding thugs.

This seems to be a trend across quite a few states. That's good. And if I'm not mistaken, what's being expanded isn't the right to self-defense, but the "no retreat" rule. I believe that this establishes a presumption that people have a reasonable belief that they're threatened whenever an intruder is present in their home or vehicle. I haven't seen the actual bill, though.

UPDATE: Here's a summary of the legislation. (Via A.C. Kleinheider).

BILL ROGGIO NOTES more positive developments in Anbar. May the good news continue.

SUING A STATE FOR "NEGLIGENT FAILURE TO LEGISLATE?" I've got a few suits I could file under this theory . . . .

IN THE MAIL: The latest installment of the Eric Flint alt-history series that began with 1632. Flint, interestingly, is a Trotskyite former labor organizer (or maybe he's a former Trotskyite labor organizer, I'm not sure) but his writing is more authentically pro-American than most of what you'll find.

UPDATE: A reminder that 1632, and its sequel, 1633, are available -- along with numerous other books from Eric Flint's backlist -- in the Baen Free Library. More on that, and how giving books away on the Web has made money for Baen Books, here.

A THREAT TO TENURE AT LAW SCHOOLS? "The American Bar Association — at the urging of some law deans and to the dismay of many law professors — is considering an end to having tenure systems be one requirement for law school accreditation."

Conservatives may be tempted to applaud this, but given the ideological complexion of the academy an end to tenure would harm non-lefty professors disproportionately.

TIME.COM WON'T LIKE DON SURBER'S TAKE: "The 1,363rd most visited Web site in the world tried to diss the president of the United States as not being among the world’s 100 most influential people."

Ouch.

JOEY PIGZA, ADHD poster child.

HE'S A HERETIC! BURN HIM! Oh, wait, that would result in excess greenhouse emissions. Never mind!

UPDATE: More charges of heresy, here! Rooting this stuff out is a full time job. Luckily, surprise is our chief weapon. Well, amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and . . . . oh, well, you know the rest.

ANN ALTHOUSE ON POST-DEBATE SPIN: "What's really going on here? Looks like people really want to destroy Giuliani."

A lot of social-cons are piling on Rudy, seeing this as a chance to take him out. That seems unwise for the GOP generally, given that in the latest Quinnipiac poll Giuliani beats Clinton and Obama handily. In fact, he does much better than Fred Thompson or John McCain. And winning elections does matter, as Republicans should realize by this point.

DEMOCRATIC NEOCONS? Some praise for Barack Obama:

Obama's Monday night foreign policy speech is more than just clever language. He displays a commitment to moral principles and a serious foreign policy usually found in the halls of the American Enterprise Institute, or the pages of the Weekly Standard: promoting the American interest through a strong offensive military that, in conjunction with diplomatic, political and economic means, is used to remake foreign nations in a liberal democratic image.

Read the whole thing.

A POST-DEBATE POLL:

Did last night's debate change your assessment of the Republicans' chances in 2008?
	I think they're better than I had thought before.
	I think they're worse than I had thought before.
	No change in my opinion.
pollcode.com free polls

HOWARD KURTZ ON THE DEBATES: "The front-runners all started strong. Then they got to abortion."

INSPIRED BY BRINK LINDSEY'S NEW BOOK, Virginia Postrel has thoughts on abundance and what it means.

INTERNET I; Designed to survive a nuclear war; survived 9/11, Katrina, numerous other diasasters.

Internet II: Taken out by a homeless man with a cigarette.

UPDATE: Here's a report that it wasn't as bad as the above report suggests.

BILL FRIST ENDORSES the we win, they lose approach to the war.

IF FELONS ARE ALLOWED TO VOTE, WHO WILL THEY VOTE FOR? The Wall Street Journal's Carl Bialik looks at the numbers. (Free link).

THOUGHTS ON FREEDOM AND OPPRESSION, from Fred Thompson.

MICKEY KAUS EXPLAINS LIFE to the younger folks.

MORE PROTESTS AGAINST THE MULLAHS in Iran.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE -- How MI-5 got behind the curve in addressing Islamist terror.

May 03, 2007

HILLARY CLINTON AND ROBERT BYRD want Congress to revoke the Iraq war authorization. Hmm. I'm pretty sure this is veto-able, like any other legislation, meaning that it' s more about protecting her left flank from Obama than about actually doing anything.

On the other hand, if it succeeds it will certainly tie her and the Democratic Party to what comes next. Which is another reason I'm pretty sure it's a stunt. Her internal polls must show Obama surging.

EARLIER I LINKED a piece in The Hill charging Dianne Feinstein with conflicts of interest. This post by Bill Allison at the Sunlight Foundation blog says that at most the piece makes out an appearance of conflict, not an actual conflict.

UPDATE: Matthew Hoy responds: "I’m still troubled (to say the least) that no major newspaper has done any in-depth reporting on the issue. There is still, at the very least, an appearance of a conflict of interest in Feinstein’s actions. If the delay (if not outright disinterest in the story) that we are seeing from the mainstream media was because reporters were diligently checking all the facts, dotting their i’s and crossing their t’s, before getting something into print or on the air I would applaud. However, this is not how things usually work."

And John Torbett writes: "For fairness sake I think you should note that the Sunlight Foundation is
operated by people who are politically left of center." True enough, but I thought everyone knew that.

REPORTEDLY, BUSH WILL VETO THE EXPANDED HATE-CRIMES LAW: Dale Carpenter has a roundup and observes: "The administration's given reasons are that the law is unnecessary, an intrusion on federalism, and constitutionally questionable as an exercise of federal power. I expressed similar reservations in a post here about the bill two months ago. To its credit, the administration is avoiding the common and I think mistaken complaint that the bill would punish speech and thought. Anti-gay organizations, like Concerned Women for America, will certainly be happy about this. But their glee is insufficient reason to support the bill."

I'VE BEEN BUSY WITH FAMILY STUFF, but N.Z. Bear has been liveblogging the Republican candidates' debate.

So are Capt. Ed, and crew, at Heading Right. "Paul . . . Sounded good on isolationism. But he just looks like crud on TV."

And here's a live debate thread at the Power Line forum. Plus, Karol Sheinin at Alarming News. "I can't help but feel that people are going to be beyond sick of all these candidates by the time election-time actually comes around. I'm already sort of sick of them. " But she thinks one of them is really good-looking!

And from a somewhat different perspective, more liveblogging from Dave Weigel. "Huckabee says we are a great nation because 'We are a culture of life.' By that reasoning, if we got into a shooting war with the Vatican, would we lose?"

Plus, from her very own perspective, Ann Althouse. "Halfway into this, I'd say the person making the most headway is Romney."

Stephen Green, meanwhile, is engaging in that "drunkblogging" that he does so well: "Imagine you're watching Hardball, only Matthews has ten guests instead of one or two. That's what tonight's debate has already devolved into. Now imagine that instead of candidates, we had ten knife-wielding spider monkeys jacked up on Mini Thins. That's where I hope this thing is going."

More at The Corner. "If you're mad as hell and won't take it anymore, McCain is your guy tonight. . . . Thompson is winning—Fred Thompson."

UPDATE: More from Spacetropic: "None of these guys is drawing a contrast to the Democrats. This seems like a huge mistake. What they are saying about these issues would be so much more persuasive if they explained the Left's take on the same (for example security, religion, abortion)."

And GraniteGrok is on the case: "FAIRTAX mentioned!!!! I wish I knew who talked about it. Guess I'll find out from the Neal Boortz site in the morning."

Bob Owens offers his take in ten words.

Oh, and I should note that Stephen Green has an open comment thread.

Joshua Claybourn counts hands on who believes in evolution.

Jonah Goldberg: "I hope Democrats, feminists and others are taking note that Chris Matthews' question about whether it would be good if Bill Clinton was back in the White House basically makes Hillary — the wife and actual candidate — the bit player."

Here's a wrap-up from Jim Geraghty.

And reader C.J. Burch emails: "Couple more of these and FRED!!! wins the nomination without having to campaign. MSNBC did itself no favors either."

No love for Keith Olbermann.

John Hawkins was pleasantly surprised: "Overall, I thought it was much more substance filled and interesting debate than the one the Democrats had last week. Also, I have to give MSNBC credit -- they did a good job overall and if anything, they may have been too soft on the candidates."

Roger Simon: “The big winner of the first Republican presidential debate was the man who wasn’t there: Fred Thompson. Although I admire Giuliani and agree with him on most issues, the presidential look and feel of the absent Fred loomed over this boring event with only Ron Paul for comic relief.”

Eric Erickson: "John McCain won. Let's not dance around this."

Further thoughts here: "Of the three front runners, Romney was by far the best, as much as it pains me to say it. Rudy was bland. McCain looked old. Brownback and Tancredo both came across as very strong. . . . Ron Paul was really eccentric. As much as I admire the man’s many votes against bigger government, he came across as pretty nuts. Tommy Thompson was really dull. Jim Gilmore was ok, but nothing special. Duncan Hunter was well-spoken, but did little to distinguish himself. Mike Huckabee was ok, but like Hunter he seemed to blend into the crowd."

Andrew Sullivan wasn't very impressed with anybody.

Mark Coffey: "The winner, I guess, is McCain by default, but we’re going to have to do much, much better than this at articulating a vision that will get us elected in 2008. Dogmatic references to a pro-life culture and endless evocations of Ronald Reagan are not going to get the job done in the current climate."

Dean Barnett posts a wrapup.

Mark Daniels comments: "I was struck by virtually the entire field's willingness to disagree with some aspects of the current administration's policies. That no doubt has something to do with the President's current low-approval ratings. But I also think that these candidates were signaling their comfort with being their own persons."

STILL MORE: SurveyUSA has an Insta-Poll of California watchers out. "Who Won CA Republican Presidential Debate? Former NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani convincingly won tonight's California debate among Republican candidates for President of the United States, according to a SurveyUSA poll of 317 state of California debate watchers. Giuliani was picked as the winner by 30% of those in CA who watched. Former MA Governor Mitt Romney, who was picked as the winner by 12%, and AZ Senator John McCain, who was picked as the winner by 11%, tied for 2nd place, far back from Giuliani. All other candidates were in single digits. . . . 51% of debate viewers were white. 28% of debate viewers were Hispanic. 15% of debate viewers were Asian. 45% of debate viewers were Republican. 30% of debate viewers were Democrats. 22% of debate viewers were Independent. 43% of debate viewers were Pro-Life. 53% of debate viewers were Pro-Choice."

Bad marks for Jim Vandehei of The Politico for his "What Do You Dislike Most About America?" question.

And some post-debate analysis from Ryan Sager, who comments: "I hate these 10-candidate debates." Plus this:

The alternate "winner" of tonight's debate, of course, was Fred Thompson. By not showing up, he managed to stay out of the muck and to preserve his status as magical "savior" candidate for another night. I'm not sure that's good for the nomination process, but it's good for Mr. Thompson.

I think that's right. But I think that starting so soon isn't good for the nomination process, either.

FINALLY: Some reactions to the debate blogged by Bill Frist.

HOME OF THE WHOPPER.

HERE'S MORE on the Obama MySpace scandal. I still think it's small potatoes, but it was an unforced error.

HARRY REID TAKES A JAB AT JOHN EDWARDS. If fists start flying, though, I'm betting on Edwards.

WALLY SCHIRRA HAS DIED at the age of 84.

ED FELTEN: "When the great mathematician Leopold Kronecker wrote his famous dictum, 'God created the integers; all else is the work of man,' he meant that the basic structure of mathematics is part of the design of the universe. What God created, AACS LA now wants to take away."

IT'S DIVERSITY THURSDAY at Best of the Web.

BACK TO THE FUTURE: A look at the current direction in Latin American politics.

GATEWAY PUNDIT JIM HOFT is liveblogging "world press freedom day" at the U.N.

SO CRAZY IT JUST MIGHT WORK: InstaPunk unveils a new strategy in the war against Islamic terror.

FRED THOMPSON on Fidel.

JONAH GOLDBERG WENT TO OXFORD, where the communist chickened out rather than confront him. "They replaced the Communist with a Canadian which, even I had to concede, was a very poor substitute for a Communist." Well, yeah.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: My hopes that the Democrats would be better on pork seem doomed to less-than-complete fulfillment:

Finance Committee chief Max Baucus (D-Mont.) is unlikely to follow the example of three other chairmen who have imposed voluntary earmark-disclosure rules on their members’ requests.

According to a Baucus aide, Baucus does not anticipate sending an earmark letter because the Finance Committee’s informal rule against so-called “rifle-shot” tax benefits makes the panel a special case. . . .

And if last year’s lobbying measure — which never made it to conference — offers any preview of this year’s talks, official tax-earmark rules may be slow in coming. Ellis said the uncertain future of earmark transparency calls for not just a letter from Baucus, but support from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

“Should Baucus do it? Yes. Should Reid move forward with a Senate rules change? Yes,” Ellis said. “Should Speaker Pelosi and the House get off the dime and pass [a lobbying bill]? Priceless.”

Read the whole thing. It's not all bad, but it certainly gives the impression of hair-splitting and foot-dragging rather than enthusiasm for real reform. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised, though.

TRANS-FAT LAWSUIT DISMISSED:

A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit brought by a doctor who accused KFC of not telling customers that it used trans fats to fry its chicken.

In an occasionally sarcastic opinion, U.S. District Judge James Robertson said Dr. Arthur Hoyte could not show that he was harmed by KFC's use of the artery-clogging fats.

That was enough to doom the lawsuit, but Robertson also noted other flaws in the case.

"While it might be appropriate for this court to find, as a matter of law, that the consumption of fat -- including trans fat -- is indeed within the reasonable expectations of the consumers of fried chicken and french fries prepared in fast food kitchens, it is not necessary for me to reach that question," Robertson wrote.

And in response to Hoyte's claim that customers have a growing understanding of the dangers of trans fats, Robertson wrote: "If consumers are increasingly aware of trans fat, where do they expect to find it if not in fast food restaurants?"

The sarcasm is merited. Costs and sanctions, would have been, too . . . .

IS THE WORLD BANK "NAKEDLY ANTI-GAY?" Prof. Kenneth Anderson looks at the latest twist.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! "Sen. Webb (D-VA) on the president's veto: 'We won this war four years ago. The question is when we end the occupation.'"

UPDATE: Say, maybe we have the outline of a deal here -- Bush agrees to withdraw troops, if Democrats agree to say loudly and publicly that we won the war.

Would Democrats go for that? I'm guessing not, as they've got too much invested in selling the war as a Bush defeat and I don't think they'd be willing to give that up just to bring the troops home. And I don't think Bush would go for it either, since I think he actually values what the troops are doing there now and doesn't think it's time to bring them home yet. But some people see this as an evolution in rhetoric.

A REVIEW OF Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center.

DAVID ALL AND JEROME ARMSTRONG UNVEIL Dome Nation.

DEMOCRATS BACK DOWN on Iraq timetable.

UPDATE: Now that the Kabuki is over, Howard Kurtz notes, both sides have to decide what to do.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Now the Democrats are denying this report and vowing No Surrender! Er, to Bush. But now they've opened a second front against the Washington Post.

IN THE MAIL: A new edition of Barry Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative, with a new introduction by George Will and, somewhat weirdly, an afterword by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. In this moment of Republican doubt and disarray, I suspect it will find a lot of readers.

And, in what may be an interesting metaphor for Republicans, the book that Amazon recommends along with it is Defiant Gardens, which actually looks kind of cool.

HERE'S SOME POTENTIAL GOOD NEWS on the longevity front:

Studies have shown that severe calorie restriction markedly extends lifespan in mice and many other species - but the reasons for this remained elusive.

But now US research on nematode worms, published in Nature, has uncovered a gene linked to this unusual effect.

In the future, the find could lead to drugs that mimic the consequences of calorie restriction but negate the need for severe fasting regimes.

These metabolic treatments aren't the Holy Grail of life-extension research -- actually repairing or reversing the damage involved in aging is the real goal -- but they could be very useful, and may come first. Plus, any success will spur further research, and research money.

WHY ISLAMIC MILITANTS hate women.

NOT RUNNING LOOKS LIKE A GOOD STRATEGY, as Fred Thompson moves up in the polls. His support seems to be coming out of Rudy Giuliani's hide. Follow the link for more.

UPDATE: In case you missed my earlier link, check out this profile of Fred Thompson by Tennessee political expert Frank Cagle.

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST: The "al Qaeda leader killed" stories are a perennial, and not big news in themselves. That they seem to be happening more often, and often at the hands of Iraqis, is more newsworthy, I think.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, earlier reports on Al-Masri's death remain unconfirmed.

"I'M GOING TO DISNEYWORLD!"

THE APPLE OPTIONS SCANDAL seems to be continuing: "Apple Inc.'s board of directors, a star-studded group that features the likes of former Vice President Al Gore and Google CEO Eric Schmidt, is coming under fire for its handling of backdated stock options at the famed computer-maker, including those handed out to its chief executive, Steve Jobs. Apple's former Chief Financial Officer Fred Anderson caused an uproar last week when he released a statement saying he had cautioned Jobs in 2001 about the accounting implications related to a particular options grant. In the same breath, Anderson questioned the conduct of Apple's board of directors regarding options backdating."

AN EXTENDED LOOK AT WHY THE DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT SUCKS: It's certainly done more damage to free expression than the Patriot Act.

(Via BoingBoing, which has much more on this topic.)

RETRO-FUTURO: A look at cars of the future from the past.

RAY KURZWEIL, whose book, The Singularity is Near, I reviewed for the Wall Street Journal last year, is profiled in Fortune magazine. Lots of cool futurist stuff. (Via Nanodot).

Link above is to a rather large PDF version. Here's the web version of the story.

DAVID BOAZ WONDERS what happened to the anti-communist movies.

Well, there's always Total Eclipse:

Total Eclipse is rated PG-13 for violence, particularly graphic in some of the mass murder scenes, images of starving infants from Stalin's 1932 forced famine in the Ukraine, and the torture of dissidents. Director Steven Spielberg (Schindler's List) deftly cuts from the Moscow trials to the torture chambers of the Lubyanka. More controversial are the portrayals of American communists during the period of the Pact. They are shown here picketing the White House, calling President Roosevelt a warmonger, and demanding that America stay out of the "capitalist war" in Europe. Harvey Keitel turns in a powerful performance as American Communist boss Earl Browder, and Linda Hunt brings depth to Lillian Hellman, who, when Hitler attacks the USSR in September of 1939, actually did cry out, "The motherland has been invaded."

Painstakingly accurate and filled with historical surprises, this film is so refreshing, so remarkable, that even at 162 minutes it seems too short.

There's only one problem.

A NAME-RECOGNITION PROBLEM for the Republicans?

THE THREE LAWS OF LAWBOTICS: Asimov's original laws arguably made robots morally superior to humans. These rules for lawyers . . . not so much.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: With earmarks, sometimes the news is what you can't find out:

Earmarks like the infamous $223 million “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska are getting lots of public attention these days but The Examiner recently found that uncovering simple facts about them can be nearly impossible.

When we asked questions about three earmarks worth millions of dollars given to local recipients, nobody seemed to know how the earmarks started or which member of Congress was responsible for them.

One thing we did find out — members of Congress aren’t the only beneficiaries because federal agencies also get a cut — 10 percent of the total — on many earmarks. . . .

Drilling deep into the OMB database, The Examiner randomly selected three earmarks that went to local firms, and then attempted to establish their paternity. We might as well have asked Coke for its formula.

I think that every single thing in legislation -- not just spending -- should be traceable to a member. In an elective legislative body, "diffusion of responsibility" is not a feature.

Meanwhile, here's a roundup of information sources that the public can use to find out, well, whatever they'll let you find out.

JOHN FUND WRITES on the art of not running for President. At least, not yet.

MARK STEYN: "On any Sunday morning, there are more Anglicans in the pews in Nigeria than in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada combined."

OOPS: "I blew up my 2008 F350 on biodiesel."

IMUS SUES CBS? And his contract seems to support it. This should be fun.

GLOBAL WARMING UPDATE:

Methane emissions from flooded rice paddies contribute to global warming just as coal-fired power plants, automobile exhausts and other sources do with the carbon dioxide they spew into the atmosphere.

In fact, the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change meeting this week in Bangkok concludes that rice production was a main cause of rising methane emissions in the 20th century. It calls for better controls.

"There is no other crop that is emitting such a large amount of greenhouse gases," said Reiner Wassmann, a climate change specialist at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines.

This is depressingly free of anti-American potential, but I'm sure something can be done. (via Dadvocate).

UPDATE: You can always blame America first. Bill Hobbs shows how it's done!

May 02, 2007

A REPORT ON THE FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES, from Nidra Poller.

A LOOK AT priorities in academic hiring.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: All eyes on Baghdad.

CHEAPER SOLAR PANELS with better quantum dots. Bring it on. Here's an earlier post on promises of revolutionary developments in solar, though the math seemed a bit iffy.

DANIEL DREZNER: What I learned at the 2007 Brussels Forum.

FRANK CAGLE: "Fred Thompson threw away the script when he ran for the Senate; he may do it again trying for the White House." Read the whole thing. Frank's a smart guy.

MORE BOGUS KYOTO HISTORY FROM REUTERS: "President George W. Bush pulled the United States out of Kyoto in 2001, arguing it would cost U.S. jobs and that it wrongly excluded 2012 goals for poorer nations such as China."

Er, no. The U.S. refused to ratify Kyoto under President Clinton. We've been over this before. It's all spelled out in Wikipedia, even. Really, if Reuters can't get simple things like this right, why should we trust them for actual news?

UPDATE: The Anchoress is unhappy, with Bush:

I’m starting to get really pissed off with the Bush Administration for their inability or disinterest in fighting their own battles. We should not have to be doing this over and over, setting the record straight again and again. The WH needed to get out in front of this stupid narrative right away, instead of letting it settle in like kudzu.

I've commented on the Bush Administration's curious passivity before.

ANOTHER UPDATE: On the other hand, here's an argument that, since Kyoto is rapidly losing its luster, Bush is being smart by letting Reuters give him credit for abandoning it, true or not. . . .

THE FCC HAS APPROVED THE FIRST WI-MAX LAPTOP CARD: I think this will be revolutionary, and sooner than you might think. I had a brief piece on this when I was at the Consumer Electronics Show, where the Intel guys told me that Wi-Max was going to be included in Centrino by next year -- read it here.

I WAS JUST ON HUGH HEWITT'S SHOW, talking about the dumb Army blogging regulation discussed below.

Bob Krumm observes: "I haven’t yet visited the 'Netroots' blogs, but I’m sure that this is being spun as: 'The Bush Administration is afraid of soldiers being able to report the "truth" about Iraq.' That angle on this bone-headed Army decision was entirely predictable, and again argues to the public relations obtuseness of the Army." A quick perusal of Technorati indicates that it's mostly rightish and military bloggers who are talking about this, but there's some evidence for Krumm's suggestion. Just a further reason to think this is indeed a boneheaded move.

On the upside, since this is just an Army regulation, members of other services remain free to blog. If the Marines wind up getting better press because of their milbloggers, perhaps interservice rivalry will do what good sense has not. It wouldn't be the first time . . . .

UPDATE: Hugh's suggestion: "Suspend the new policy asap and convene a panel of senior brass and civilians to focus on the blog issue but also on the information war more generally. This pratfall could become the occasion for the Pentagon to ask why we are getting rings run around us in the information war."

Sadly, one possible explanation is bureaucratic turf protection. Somebody asks "Why are the milblogs doing so much better than our 'official' PR efforts?" Response: Shut down the milblogs so nobody will make that comparison in the future!

But, in fact, we are performing very badly in the information war, and there's no excuse for that at all. As I said on Hugh's show, there's been some improvement recently, but it's been modest, and late to arrive. And this regulation does provide a good opportunity to look into that.

More thoughts here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Patterico thinks that concerns here are overblown, though I fear he's not paying enough attention to the CYA factor.

WHEN REAL LIFE IMITATES THE ONION: Newsweek interviews Wayne Lo, a Taiwanese immigrant who shot up his college in 1992. Check out the first question:

NEWSWEEK: What was your reaction when you heard about the Virginia Tech shooting?

Wayne Lo: When they said it was a perpetrator who was Asian, that really shocked me. The stereotype is that Asians don’t do these things. The Secret Service came and interviewed me for a report on school shooters that they put out in 2002, and even they said Asians don’t really do this.

Look in the mirror, dude, if they let you have one of those in the lockup. The next question: "Did you relate to Seung-Hui Cho because you’re both Asian?"

JONAH GOLDBERG DEFENDS ME against the serious charge of linking to things without commentary.

Yeah, the link itself is clearly an endorsement. Like my comment-free linkage to John Edwards' poverty plan. Or my bare link to Bill Richardson's plan for Iraq. Obviously, I support both, and just don't want the blame associated with admitting it! Which, I admit, might be substantial. . . . [What about your bare link to McCain's "League of Democracies" proposal? -- ed. I'm not sure what I think of that. Hence, a bare link. I could have said "I'm not sure what I think of this," I guess, but that would have wasted pixels and added to global warming.]

I link stuff because I think it's linkworthy, not necessarily because I agree with it. And, for that matter, plenty of people send me stuff that I agree with that I don't ever link, because it doesn't fit for whatever reason. It's like DJ-ing -- you put in what feels like it goes next in the mix.

Anyway, I understand that some people don't like that style of blogging. I encourage them to visit one of the 71 million other blogs out there, instead of InstaPundit. Or, if you insist on staying around, I'll quote the late Rob Smith: "If my blog does not meet your standards, then LOWER YOUR STANDARDS. Who the hell do you think you are, anyway?"

Nah, I can't be that curmudgeonly yet. How about this: If you're not happy, your subscription is absolutely free!

UPDATE: Reader John Davies writes: "I've been a reader for years and got it right away. An Instapundit
link means pay attention to this. I keep coming back because what you think is important is 90% what I think is important."

Those who find otherwise are encouraged to find a blog that suits them better.

THE STOCK MARKET just keeps doing better. "The Dow Jones industrial average hit another record high Wednesday, capping its longest winning stretch in almost 52 years as investors welcomed strong earnings, lower oil prices, media merger news and a strong reading on manufacturing." So things look great to the market; to me, they look okay, but not this great. Who's right? I guess we'll see.

TAKING DOWN THE WHOLE INTERNET? Joel Johnson looks at the risk.

LIVE BY THE USERS, DIE BY THE USERS: Trouble afoot in Digg nation.

THE OBAMA MYSPACE STORY seems to have legs. I'm not sure if Obama's campaign did anything wrong, but I think it would have been smarter to have made sure this guy walked away feeling good, instead of betrayed.

GREENHOUSE UPDATE:

Jet-setting Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton is a fussy frequent flier who used three different planes in a single day during a recent campaign swing through South Carolina.

The former first lady even grounded one aircraft - a chartered Gulfstream II - in Columbia, S.C., last Friday, demanding a swankier Gulfstream III replacement for a flight out west.

"She didn't like the configuration of the cabin," an aviation source familiar with Clinton's travel told The Post. . . .Clinton, who has warned against global warming from the stump and hyped the need for alternative energy such as ethanol, burned through thousands of gallons of jet fuel swooping along the campaign trail - and it's not clear why she sent an empty plane to wait for her in South Carolina then flew a different jet from Washington the next day.

How about flying commercial?

UPDATE: Found this story via the Hillary website: "She said she has introduced a bill that requires federal buildings to save energy and her campaign has even pledged to go carbon-neutral _ using energy efficient light bulbs and recycled paper in an effort to cut down on pollution. 'Please use this as a voting issue,'' she told the college students, who made up much of the crowd."

Er, be careful what you ask for. . . .

"WE WIN. THEY LOSE." A refreshing theory of the war on terror.

JULIAN SANCHEZ ON THE ANTI-VIDEOGAME BRIGADE:

It's been a good week for the digital descendants of Thomas Bowdler. As we all know, the best sweeping public policy is guided by our reactions to manifestly insane people who commit acts of violence as extreme in their rarity as their brutality. So as the bones of the Virginia Tech victims are picked thoroughly clean for political red meat, it's no surprise to find violent video games joining an ever-expanding list of whipping boys, from obvious candidates like deinstitutionalization and the gun culture to (yes, really) feminism and atheism. Killer Cho Seung-Hui may have played Counter-Strike in high school, you see.

I think porn and violent videogames are good for America's children. And unlike the critics, I've got empirical evidence!

PROXY WAR in the Middle East?

BULLET, MEET FOOT:

The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say.

Frankly, the "official" communications efforts on this war have been largely lame and ineffective, and most of the good stuff has come from milbloggers. I understand the importance of security, but this is going to do much more harm than good. Lots of stuff at the link above, and also read this post from Blackfive.

UPDATE: Still more here. Really, this is a bad idea.

DO HILLARY AND OBAMA LOVE GRAVEL AND KUCINICH?

By making Gravel and Kucinich the designated villains of the debate, Obama and Hillary never have to engage and disagree strongly with a more liberal candidate with an actual base of support - somebody like John Edwards. It's risk-free verbal sparring.

Trouble is, with Gravel achieving rock-star status among the netroots, this could backfire.

CONGRESSMAN JOHN CAMPBELL:

Over the weekend, a local building on Capitol Hill, known as "Eastern Market," burned down. The place is well known by locals in D.C. and is often frequented by members of Congress -- many of whom live nearby. On Monday, Del. Eleanor Holmes-Norton (D-D.C.), was quoted in several papers stating that she is going to try and get federal funding to help rebuild it. Her justification for this use of taxpayer dollars was the following: "It's a popular place for members to go."

I am completely puzzled. Why in the world should the American taxpayer be asked to help pay for the rebuilding of a local market that has no connection to the federal government, except that several members of Congress live nearby?

I would submit that if Del. Holmes-Norton and other members are so concerned about rebuilding Eastern Market than they should dip into their own pockets to help out -- not just unassumingly take from the taxpayers. It sure is a lot easier to spend money when it is not yours, than when it is.

Our whole government is built on that notion . . . .

GLEN WHITMAN looks at the economics of romance. Some will find this analysis troubling.

NICE WORDS FOR BILL RICHARDSON from a gun-toting woman.

OBAMA'S SELECTIVE MEMORY: At Mother Jones.

(Via Peter Suderman, who comments: "Obama seems to be hoping that people don't notice that he opposed the war in Iraq despite believing that Saddam Hussein had developed chemical and biological weapons.")

I think this is bigger than the MySpace scandal, but both are small potatoes.

UPDATE: Tom Maguire defends Obama against the wingnuts at Mother Jones. "I suppose one might argue that Obama should have skipped the ellipsis and faced the (very faint) music regarding his apparent acceptance of a WMD argument - in this day and age, did he really think folks would not track down a speech posted at his own site? But that said, there is no here here. Which puts me in Glenn's 'small potatoes' camp."

Meanwhile, the MySpace story is generating robust debate on Slashdot.

PRO-GUN GROUP wants Gonzales to resign.

"HOW BLOGS BLOW THINGS OUT OF PROPORTION:" You're kidding. This happens?

IN THE MAIL: The Girls Next Door - Season 2 on DVD. Suggested slogan: "The boobs are fake, but the entertainment is real!"

As my brother's girlfriend points out, it's almost certainly the most positive portrayal of a heterosexual relationship on TV today. Which surely says something significant . . . .

BERNARD HARCOURT has still more on institutionalization and imprisonment of the mentally ill, and what this means for crime rates. "I’m not only surprised by the results of the regression, I’m almost horrified also extremely concerned by the implications regarding the state of our current knowledge and existing research."

[Quote updated to reflect change in original. Thanks to Jacob Corre for the tip.]

DIRTY COAL, clean air?

There are at least a dozen proposals on Capitol Hill for sequestering all the carbon from coal burning, and the Senate Energy Committee began hearings last month on how to refocus research on the problem. It’s a challenge that has captured the attention of engineers across the country who hope to perfect a clean-coal technology that could provide climate-friendly energy for hundreds of years at modest cost.

“Coal has to be in our energy mix, because of its value for society and its importance to the country,” said Mark Gray, vice president for engineering services at American Electric Power, which recently announced three projects to capture carbon. “We have enough coal for anywhere from 200 to 450 years.”

We should also be working on producing liquid fuels from coal economically. Replacing oil with coal would be a good thing. It's certainly possible, but it's not easy.

UPDATE: Here's more on turning coal to gasoline. At current gas prices it's starting to look good.

AT POWER LINE, a new Presidential Candidates' forum. I think this could be big.

JOHN EDWARDS' PLAN for eliminating poverty. He's got a book on the subject, too.

UPDATE: Don Surber thinks this sounds familiar.

RADLEY BALKO looks at free military gear for police departments, and the militarization of law enforcement.

It dovetails nicely with this column that I wrote a while back.

HOWARD KURTZ: Could some Republicans support Hillary?

MR. BRODER GOES TO WASHINGTON:

One starts to get the feeling here that some of the divides in the rift between Mr. Broder and the Democratic caucus are not so much political but cultural. The chairman of the Washington Post Company, Donald Graham, served in Vietnam, and Mr. Broder himself is an army veteran. The notion of a Washington politician declaring a war lost even as American GIs are appearing in arms on the field of battle in the cause of freedom abroad, well it has a way of grating on those who have worn the uniform, a fact that many of Mr. Broder's readers, if not the 50 senators, understand.

Via reader C.J. Burch, who comments: "I didn't think congress could get worse under the Democrats. I was wrong. I'm suspecting a number of people are noticing that."

UPDATE: Reader Timothy Daley points out that James Webb, who signed the letter, "wore the uniform." Good point. I think the difference is cultural, really. And, as I suggested before, the point it to tell Democratic columnists that they are not to leave the reservation.

FORGET 9/11 TRUTHERS -- all the cool paranoids are getting behind the 4/29 Truth movement.

Everybody knows that fire doesn't melt steel. And the government coverup has already begun!

CANADA: A hotbed of piracy. Arrrh!

KANSAS MALL SHOOTER: Another case of someone with mental problems who should have been institutionalized, but wasn't. No surprise, really. And, also typically, the shootings took place in a "gun free" area.

HAMAS OFFICIAL: Kill all Americans. Remind me again why we're giving these people money. Aren't they, you know, our enemies?

"WHY EVEN THE FRENCH WILL LIBERALIZE:" A hopeful take.

LAWRENCE KAPLAN: Congressional leaders are illiterate on Iraq. Excerpt:

There are two possibilities: First, Reid and Pelosi could be purposefully minimizing the stakes in Iraq. Or, second, they don't know what they're talking about. My guess is some combination of the two. Political maneuvering certainly contributes to the everyday pollution of Iraq discourse. But a lot of the pollution derives from legislators being functionally illiterate about the war over which Congress now intends to preside. In this, of course, they're hardly alone. The Bush administration's wretched Iraq literacy has been well-chronicled. But, with Congress demanding a louder say in the management of the war, the same knowledge gap that plagued our arrival in Iraq looks like it will be revived just in time for our departure.

Whatever explains the literacy gap, this much at least is obvious: Having been called into being by politicians on both sides of the aisle, the war in Iraq no longer bears a relation to anything they say. You don't need to cherry-pick quotes to prove the point: Nearly every time a senator's mouth opens, something wrong comes out. . . . Most of all, illiteracy makes for good politics. There is the conviction, to paraphrase McCain, that winning a war takes precedence over winning an election. But it isn't so clear that this conviction guides a partisan brawl in which the Senate majority leader can gush, "We're going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war." In such an environment, the subordination of facts to politics inform matters small and large, from the relatively trivial question of whether U.S. troops still operate in Tal Afar to enormous questions regarding the future of the U.S. enterprise in Iraq.

Via Ace, who has more excerpts.

UPDATE: Don't miss this video, either.

ANOTHER GRUNT'S rant on Iraq.

May 01, 2007

OWEN WEST: Why Congress should embrace the surge.

HOW THE NANNY STATE KILLS CHILDREN. Think of it as a nanny who doesn't much care what happens to the kids, so long as there's no blame. . . .

THOUGHTS ON happy people and happy cultures. "Admittedly, the optimal level of cheer (or optimism) in a society is impossible to assess in the abstract."

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION UPDATE:

Anyone who knows much about real power in Congress knows that almost every member of the House and Senate lusts after a seat on the Appropriations Committee and hopes one day to achieve the status of Cardinal. The Cardinals, of course, are the folks who chair the various Appropriations Committee subcommittees and literally control the billions of dollars that pass through their hands.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) chairs the Senate Rules Committee, but she’s also a Cardinal. She is currently chairwoman of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies subcommittee, but until last year was for six years the top Democrat on the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies (or “Milcon”) sub-committee, where she may have directed more than $1 billion to companies controlled by her husband.

If the inferences finally coming out about what she did while on Milcon prove true, she may be on the way to morphing from a respected senior Democrat into another poster child for congressional corruption.

The problems stem from her subcommittee activities from 2001 to late 2005, when she quit. During that period the public record suggests she knowingly took part in decisions that eventually put millions of dollars into her husband’s pocket — the classic conflict of interest that exploited her position and power to channel money to her husband’s companies. . . .

Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington, or CREW, usually focuses on the ethical lapses of Republicans and conservatives, but even she is appalled at the way Sen. Feinstein has abused her position. Sloan told a California reporter earlier this month that while”there are a number of members of Congress with conflicts of interest … because of the amount of money involved, Feinstein’s conflict of interest is an order of magnitude greater than those conflicts.”

And the director of the Project on Government Oversight who examined the evidence of wrongdoing assembled by California writer Peter Byrne told him that “the paper trail showing Senator Feinstein’s conflict of interest is irrefutable.”

Yet as the article notes, the story isn't getting much press, and she's now chairing the Rules Committee. Follow the link for more from The Hill.

UPDATE: An emailer who requests anonymity says there's less to this story than meets the eye, but I can't find any online refutation. (It doesn't help that technorati isn't working at the moment.) Anyway, bear that in mind and I'll see what I can find out later.

ANOTHER UPDATE: See this post at the Sunlight Foundation website.

LAWYERS ARE EASILY AMUSED: "We’re partying like rock stars down here at Law Blog headquarters in Lower Manhattan. Why? Because today is Law Day!" Don't spill the champagne.

Of course, some people are partying because of those $50,000 clerkship bonuses! Jeez. I only got $10K, and I thought it was a lot. I bought my first laptop, a Toshiba T1100+, for $2589 -- a bargain -- from 47th St. Photo.

FRED THOMPSON IS LOOKING AT AN UNCONVENTIONAL CAMPAIGN if he runs:

Thompson, his wife and advisers in Washington and Tennessee also are drawing up plans for a new style of campaign that would rely heavily on technology and his celebrity status to avoid some of the slogging through the snow in Iowa and New Hampshire that is normally required of White House hopefuls.

The advisers say Thompson, who plays District Attorney Arthur Branch on NBC's "Law & Order," is researching ways to use technology -- including the Web, videoconferences and teleconferences -- to harness the enthusiasm for his candidacy among grass-roots bloggers and activists. The campaign also would rely on large events, such as those that have in part supplanted country-store campaigning for some in the Democratic field.

"Well-known candidates can do things a little differently," explained one adviser. "You show up, you're accessible, but you don't have to go to every county seat several times.

Originally, the idea of a late-start campaign for Thompson looked like something of a lark, but the phantom candidacy is accelerating.

As I've said before, I think that the combination of the Internet and the Feiler Faster Principle means that Thompson can get in late and still do well. We'll see if I'm right, but obviously he's looking into the subject. (Via ElephantBiz). With people already getting tired of the front-runners in both parties, this just might be a smart strategy.

UPDATE: Fred-skeptic A.C. Kleinheider isn't buying it: "It appears as though Fred Thompson is drinking from the same Kool-aid pitcher a lot of folks have since the internet was invented by Al Gore."

ANOTHER UPDATE: A New Hampshire reader emails: "If Thompson avoids 'slogging through the snow in New Hampshire and Iowa,' he will make a terrible mistake."

Well, it's not as if the Blog Primary is the real primary. Which is too bad for Thompson at this point!

RUPERT MURDOCH thinks that the Wall Street Journal has a winning strategy.

I wonder what inspired him to take this step? Er, probably just his native business acumen, actually.

HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE THE "PUBLIC HEALTH EXPERTS" KILLED? Possibly quite a few, by encouraging people to stay out of the sun: "Those studying the vitamin say the hide-from-sunlight advice has amounted to the health equivalent of a foolish poker trade. Anyone practising sun avoidance has traded the benefit of a reduced risk of skin cancer—which is easy to detect and treat and seldom fatal—for an increased risk of the scary, high-body-count cancers, such as breast, prostate and colon, that appear linked to vitamin D shortages."

Upside: Most people didn't listen! Downside: If they were tobacco companies we could sue them.

THE BEES STRIKE BACK! "A swarm of bees clustered outside the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Medical Center shut down the emergency room Monday, as officials waited for a beekeeper to come vacuum up the 7,000 insects."

Or maybe they were trying to get help!

IT'S THE ANNIVERSARY OF BUSH'S "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" SPEECH, which has lots of lefties chortling.

Er, except that Harry Reid seems to agree, really, with the "end of major combat operations" that Bush was celebrating:

"The military mission has long since been accomplished. The failure has been political. It has been policy. It has been presidential," Reid said in excerpts of the speech released by his office.

At the time of the speech, of course, the complaint from many Democrats was that Bush was generating campaign-commercial footage out of a military triumph that belonged to all Americans, given the wide support for the war. Well, that story has changed, as the many, many Democrats who supported the war try to execute their pivot.

That said, I was one of the relatively few critics of the event back when it took place, and I strongly suspect that the Bush folks wish now that they hadn't done it. Well, live and learn.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey notes that people should pay more attention to what Bush actually said four years ago. Read the whole thing. And note what Hillary Clinton said!

A MAY DAY PROPOSAL FROM ILYA SOMIN: "We appropriately have a Holocaust Memorial Day. It is equally appropriate to commemorate the victims of the twentieth century's other great totalitarian tyranny. And May Day is the most fitting day to do so."

I think some people are already working on that.

BOEHNER BEATS MCDERMOTT in cellphone-tapping lawsuit.

NICK GILLESPIE OBSERVES: "Hmmm, so air quality seems to be getting better, despite overall population and economic growth in these United States? Why doesn't that sort of thing ever get pushed to the top of such stories?"

Er, because it wouldn't foster gloom, panic, and demands for more government regulation?

MEGAN MCARDLE HAS THOUGHTS on children and marriage. The gene pool needs you, Megan!

CORAL IS DYING: A look at efforts to bring it back:

Mr. Nedimyer focuses most of his efforts on coral, something he got into almost by accident several years ago, through his work as a wholesale dealer in aquarium supplies, a business he has operated for 35 years. One of his products is “live rock,” reef rubble that bacteria colonize. In aquariums, the bacteria help break down waste from fish.

He had permission from the government to gather live rock at a particular site and one day about 10 years ago, he noticed that a few bits of rubble had something growing on them. “I didn’t know what it was at first,” he said. “I saw five of these little things. I kept watching them and pretty soon they started to grow out into staghorn coral.” He set the rocks aside, underwater, and managed to keep the coral growing in spite of storms and other problems. When he found broken pieces of coral he stuck them in other pieces of rock, and “sometimes they would live.”

Read the whole thing, which is very interesting.

MITT ROMNEY'S FAVORITE NOVEL turns out to be . . . Battlefield Earth? He must be telling the truth. Who would make that up? And why?

I'm still looking for the candidate whose favorite novel is something along these lines.

CORZINE UPDATE:

A self-described gadfly withdrew his complaint Tuesday against Gov. Jon S. Corzine for failing to wear a seat belt when he was critically injured in a highway crash. State police have not yet decided whether to ticket the governor.

The complaint filed by Larry Angel was withdrawn just as a judge was to decide whether to approve the complaint. Corzine was released from a hospital Monday and apologized for not wearing his seat belt when his official SUV crashed on April 12.

"The governor's statements of taking responsibility swayed him," said Roseanne Lugg, the Galloway court administrator. "That was all Mr. Angel was after."

Of course, Corzine immediately broke the speed limit thereafter . . . .

Corzine just seems perfectly representative of our political class.

BUT OF COURSE: Vanishing bees are a sign of the apocalypse.

FOR MAY DAY, a day of remembrance.

And read this post from Brink Lindsey, who's back blogging again.

"QUOTE DOCTORING" in the publishing world.

I GUESS FRED THOMPSON MUST BE TAKING OFF, because opponents are roaming Nashville looking for dirt:

Nashville law circles were abuzz last week about professional snoops – either private investigators or opposition research political types - combing public records in Metro buildings looking for potential dirt on Thompson. Property records seemed to be at the top of their list.

Obviously, someone's scared.

OUR AHISTORICAL MEDIA: Shirley who?

MORE ON THE AL-MASRI STORY FROM RICHARD MINITER: "Most likely, our sources tell us, al Masri was felled by former insurgents who have come over to the American side."

UPDATE: A warning about chicken-counting.

BERNARD HARCOURT HAS MORE on mental hospitals, prisons, and homicide rates.

IN THE MAIL: Some Flabber Floover puzzles. They look pretty challenging. I don't know if they'll be able to match the fun of the Ball of Whacks, though. What could?

MCCAIN FAVORS a "league of democracies."

UPDATE: Related thoughts, and a Kaus connection, here.

HOWARD KURTZ: "Somewhere out there, there must be someone defending George Tenet. I'm just having trouble finding that person."

BILL RICHARDSON'S plan for Iraq.

FRED THOMPSON HAS THOUGHTS on popularity.

BILL FRIST IS EXONERATED: No big surprise, but don't look for a lot of press on this.

GETTING THE WAR ON DRUGS out of the way of the war on terror. About time. Let's hope this represents a trend.

AL-MASRI JOINS ZARQAWI. And there's some interesting history on when he entered Iraq: "He probably entered Iraq in 2002, before al-Zarqawi, and may have helped establish the first al-Qaida cell in the Baghdad area." Pre-invasion? But I thought Saddam and Al Qaeda had nothing to do with each other. . . .

UPDATE: Al Qaeda's structure has its advantages: "But if it's 'decentralised' in a way that has them killing each other, that's a good thing."

Of course, we're fighting among ourselves, too. But at least Joe Biden's violent imagery is just, well, imagery.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Biden seems a bit too fond of this particular imagery.

TEXAS GOV. RICK PERRY wants to allow concealed carry everywhere. If it saves just one life, it's worth it!

I GUESS DOCTORS CAN'T "BURY THEIR MISTAKES" ANY MORE:

What they saw amazed them, according to Dr. Lance Becker, an authority on emergency medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "After one hour," he says, "we couldn't see evidence the cells had died. We thought we'd done something wrong." In fact, cells cut off from their blood supply died only hours later.

But if the cells are still alive, why can't doctors revive someone who has been dead for an hour? Because once the cells have been without oxygen for more than five minutes, they die when their oxygen supply is resumed. It was that "astounding" discovery, Becker says, that led him to his post as the director of Penn's Center for Resuscitation Science, a newly created research institute operating on one of medicine's newest frontiers: treating the dead. . . .

With this realization came another: that standard emergency-room procedure has it exactly backward. When someone collapses on the street of cardiac arrest, if he's lucky he will receive immediate CPR, maintaining circulation until he can be revived in the hospital. But the rest will have gone 10 or 15 minutes or more without a heartbeat by the time they reach the emergency department. And then what happens? "We give them oxygen," Becker says. "We jolt the heart with the paddles, we pump in epinephrine to force it to beat, so it's taking up more oxygen." Blood-starved heart muscle is suddenly flooded with oxygen, precisely the situation that leads to cell death. Instead, Becker says, we should aim to reduce oxygen uptake, slow metabolism and adjust the blood chemistry for gradual and safe reperfusion.

As Miracle Max put it: "There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive." It just turns out that dealing with that is different than we thought.

MICKEY KAUS: "Does Hillary want Al Gore in the race?"

LITTLE DEBBIE VS. THE BEAR: No surprise who won.

SHAREHOLDER ACTIVISM AT GOOGLE:

The custodian of five major public pension funds in New York City will formally request next month that Google take steps to counteract internet censorship in foreign countries with authoritarian government such as China, Egypt and Iran, according to Google's proxy statement for its annual meeting of stockholders on May 10.

Follow the link for much more.

FIGHTING GLOBAL WARMING WITH PLANKTON:

In an effort to ameliorate the effects of global warming, several groups are working on ventures to grow vast floating fields of plankton intended to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and carry it to the depths of the ocean. It is an idea, debated by experts for years, that still sounds like science fiction — and some scholars think that is where it belongs. . . .

The ship plans to dissolve tons of iron, an essential plankton nutrient, over a 10,000-square-kilometer patch. That’s equivalent to 2.47 million acres (3,861 square miles on land or 2,912 square nautical miles). When the trace iron prompts growth and reproduction of the tiny organism, scientists on the WeatherBird II plan to measure how much carbon dioxide the plankton ingests. The idea is similar to planting forests full of carbon-inhaling trees, but in desolate stretches of ocean. “This is organic gardening, not rocket science,” said Russ George, the chief executive of Planktos, the company behind the WeatherBird II project. “Can it possibly be as easy as we say it is? We’re about to find out.”

Like the dreaded Merkle Cloud, this could be dangerous if overdone. Don't plunge us into a new ice age, please. (And wouldn't that be a good plot for a thriller -- evil scientist, in cooperation with Hugh Chavez-like tropical dictator, deliberately triggers an ice age!) Just remember, you can never trust Plankton.

April 30, 2007

THE WACKOS proliferate.

QUOTE OF THE DAY.

HACKING YOUR BODY'S BACTERIA for better health. I think this is a great idea, though i also think they're still a bit short on science at this point. More research, please.

SNOW TREASURE: A story of the Norwegian resistance in World War II.

TIM BLAIR MEETS JOHN MALKOVICH, who asks: “What’s the story with Margo Kingston?”

PUSHING A BARBIE CAR beyond its limits.

"WE SHOULD VIEW AGING AS CURABLE:" Well, we probably will, once there's a cure. Which is not to undercut the point being made.

DO WE NEED A BIGGER MILITARY? Austin Bay and Phil Carter debate the topic in the Los Angeles Times.

EXPANDING OFFSHORE DRILLING: Better to get our oil from America than from Iran, Venezuela, or Saudi Arabia.

DARFUR UPDATE: "More than three quarters of Muslim respondents in six nations surveyed said they believe Arabs and Muslims should be equally concerned about the situation in Darfur as they are about the Arab-Israeli conflict, according to the results of a recent poll unveiled at the Arab Broadcast Forum in Abu Dhabi. Results ranged from a high of 95% in Morocco to 76% in Turkey."

50+ YEARS OF MAD MAGAZINE on two DVDs. Yeah, of course I'm going to order it. Well, maybe -- some of the reviews suggest resolution issues. Anybody know?

Thanks to reader Paul Music for pointing this out.

THE POLAR ICE CAPS are melting fast. I blame Halliburton.

LESSONS FROM ANBAR.

OKAY, THIS IS JUST SAD: N.J. Gov. Jon Corzine has a terrible accident after going 91 mph without a seatbelt in the rain. On the way home from the hospital today, still wheelchair-bound, he speeds: "No one in the motorcade used emergency lights, as his driver had been doing at the time of the accident. They kept to a pace of about 70 miles per hour, even though the posted limit is 55 on the stretch of Interstate 295 that leads to Drumthwacket, the governor’s official mansion in Princeton, where Mr. Corzine will spend the next stage of his recovery."

Nice example. I mean, 70 in a 55 isn't huge, but under the circumstances. . . .

DAVID BRODER STANDS HIS GROUND:

David Broder said he wouldn't change anything in his April 26 column, which angered many readers and caused 50 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus to write a letter criticizing Broder in Friday's Washington Post.

In that Thursday piece, Broder criticized Harry Reid for saying the Iraq War is lost militarily, compared Reid to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and concluded: "The Democrats deserve better, and the country needs more, than Harry Reid has offered as Senate majority leader."

"I still think the Democrats can do better, and should do better," said Broder, when reached today by E&P. . . . Broder, who's syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group, isn't sure if he'll use a future column to address the reaction his April 26 piece stirred up. Rather than looking back, he said, "I try to keep dealing with new topics."

Like Harry Reid's land deals?

UPDATE: Reader James Somers emails: 'If, in 2005, 50 Republican senators had written a letter to the New York Times excoriating Paul Krugman for criticizing Bill Frist, and conservative blogs had incited their readers to bombard the Times with angry e-mails complaining about Krugman, wouldn't this have just been one more example of the RethugliKKKans' crushing of dissent?"

Well, yeah.

ANOTHER BLOW for abstinence.

UPDATE: And another, I guess, with the sex-boosting slimming pill for women.

THE BLOG PRIMARY: "If blogs have any power, Thompson is in the catbird seat."

But do they?

AN ARMY OF ALBERTOS? "A group of ex-CIA officials call on Tenet to give back his medal of freedom, branding him 'the Alberto Gonzales of the intelligence community.'"

First Harry Reid, now this. I fear, however, that we've had a government of Albertos -- in all branches -- all along.

MICHAEL YON HAS POSTED THE SECOND PART of his photo essay from Iraq.

CAMERAS DO NOT EQUAL SECURITY: "Britain risks 'committing slow social suicide' by allowing the Big Brother state to take over its citizens' lives, the leading privacy watchdog will warn tomorrow."

CHALLENGING A PHOTO ERROR by a blogger.

CHALLENGING BARACK OBAMA to join the One Billion Bulbs Campaign.

He's got a long way to go if he's going to catch up with InstaPundit readers.

Or even with Stephen Green!

THE LAST WORD ON GEORGE TENET? "My conclusion: an inept organization was led by a stupefyingly inept man." I can understand not firing him immediately after 9/11 -- we were in crisis mode and too much turnover might have been disruptive. But he should have been let go as soon as possible after the Afghanistan invasion was over. (Later: See this post from 2002 on the need for heads to roll, though I didn't specifically mention Tenet.)

Of course, Tenet might hope that the above is the last word -- because this is even harsher. I think he would have been better off keeping his mouth shut. That's what spymasters are supposed to do, isn't it?

UPDATE: But even a spymaster needs a confidant. "I’m all for feelings, and talking about them. But there’s a place and time. This sort of thing rightly belongs in a therapist’s office. But sometimes it seems as though the whole world has turned into a therapist’s office."

A LOOK AT mental health commitments and the Virginia Tech shooting. "It’s impossible to make sense of the debate, though, without understanding the extent to which we’ve dismantled our mental health system in this country. Brick-by-brick, cell-by-cell, we deconstructed what was once a massive mental hospital complex and built in its place a huge prison."

PEOPLE KEEP SENDING ME LINKS to Stephen Milloy's piece on mercury and compact fluorescent bulbs. I already posted on that. I'm trying, by the way, to arrange a followup featuring actual lab experimentation.

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF THE U.S. PULLED OUT OF IRAQ? Michael Totten asks a Peshmerga colonel.

PROTESTING HONOR KILLINGS AND STONINGS, in Iraq. Plus, Uncle Jimbo from Blackfive was on CNN.

HERE'S A STRONG REVIEW of Evan Coyne Maloney's film Indoctrinate U. Excerpt:

This film hits you in the gut, in a way that no column or blog post can. Seeing the faces of the protagonists in these campus conflicts, and hearing their stories in their own words, makes it seem as if you’re learning about the problems of campus bias and tyranny for the very first time. After the screening, audience members had a chance to question Maloney. I particularly remember a woman who said she was almost too shaking with anger to speak. . . .

Will Indoctrinate U get seen? I don’t think there’s any doubt that a significant audience for this movie exists. But to overcome their own pressures of political correctness, distributors need to be reminded of that. So to prove that there is in fact an audience for this film, a website has been set up where you can register your interest in seeing Indoctrinate U. There you can also catch a trailer of the film.

I hope it gets seen.

BILL RICHARDSON'S plan for Darfur.

UPDATE: He hasn't won over Don Surber.

THE GIULIANI CAMPAIGN launches a new campaign video.

A "DISMAL YEAR" for network TV. Why should the year be any different from the programming?

MAYBE THERE'S HOPE, CONT'D: The Dangerous Book for Boys, which I mentioned yesterday, has climbed to #11 on Amazon. Meanwhile, although it's not as politically incorrect -- or is it? -- here's another interesting entry in the realm of neo-retro books for boys: the Popular Mechanics editors' The Boy Mechanic: 200 Classic Things to Build. I don't suppose that every kid could build stuff like this back in the old days, but it's interesting to see how many skills, and how much persistence, is taken for granted here.

IS BRITISH INFLATION coming to the United States? I note that while the dollar is weak compared to the pound and the euro, it's doing comparatively well against the yen. Not sure what that means, but I remember when it was the yen we were worrying about.

"SELF-PAY LUXURY JAILS:" This seems kind of third-worldish to me. And I agree with this criticism:

I have a feeling such differential treatment may ultimately do more harm than good. By allowing the wealthiest to "exit" the normal jail system, we lose an important "voice" for making it decent.

Not that there are very many of the "wealthiest" in prison to begin with. But the point holds nonetheless. The counterargument, I guess, is that better accommodations are often available within the prison system to those with clout, and this just evens the odds. I don't think I buy that, but I suppose some people will feel differently.

COAL? YES, COAL:

Despite the fact that coal is known to be one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gases, Boyce, 52, is banking on a future in which America burns a lot more of it. With the country's huge reserves, he argues, coal should be doing much more than its traditional tasks of making electricity or steel. "We're moving into an era where we'll be driving our vehicles based on coal-derived fuel. We're going to be flying on it," Boyce declares. . . .

The Energy Dept. predicts overall electricity demand will grow by 45% between now and 2030. It also forecasts that coal-fired plants, today 51% of the market, will grow to 57% over the same period. Coal is cheap and plentiful. And there aren't a lot of easy alternatives for replacing it anytime soon. Just to maintain nuclear power's 20% of the U.S. energy market, 35 to 40 new plants will have to built in the next 20 years. Renewable sources such as hydropower, wind, and biofuels face similar challenges scaling up to meet market demand.

Burning coal is filthy. I'd rather see lots of nice, clean, greenhouse-friendly nuclear plants, with coal going to liquid fuels and chemical-industry uses. On the other hand, an upside is that coal doesn't come from Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Venezuela.

"I GOT MY NUCLEAR REACTOR through the New York Times!" Hey, the ad business is slow.

MORE ON THE DUKE RAPE PERSECUTION DEBACLE, from the Los Angeles Times.

NBC IS STILL TAKING FLAK FOR AIRING THE CHO VIDEO: Howard Kurtz has a roundup.

If the news media were held to the standards, in terms of tort liability or social responsibility, that they hold other industries to, NBC would be in serious trouble.

More criticism of NBC, here.

RICK LEE DEMONSTRATES how to get a fancy studio shot without a fancy studio. Or camera! Rick's theory: 'It's not about the camera (tm) and it's not about the rest of the equipment. It's about the knowledge and creativity." Sadly -- for me at least -- he's right.

TODAY IS NATIONAL TAX FREEDOM DAY: Enjoy working for yourself for the remainder of the year.

XENI JARDIN REPORTS from the Coachella music festival. And here's another entry she posted earlier. Lots of cool photos.

A "WAR ON BOOK REVIEWERS?" Virginia Postrel says no: "What Alex calls 'the loss of pagination at a few provincial newspapers'--notably, in my life, the Dallas Morning News--mostly represents the loss of reviews that are short, dull reports on books everyone already knows about. "

IN RESPONSE TO HARRY REID, THE WASHINGTON POST ASKED some people if the war in Iraq was lost. The best answer is from Kanan Makiya:

It's up to you The Iraq war is lost or won if the American people choose to lose or win it. With the way things are going at the moment, I perfectly understand why they might choose to give up on the war. But that is not because the war is inherently unwinnable by a country as great and rich and powerful as the United States.

But read the whole thing, which is pretty much evenly divided. Way back in 2003 Virginia Postrel was noting that there wasn't a single coherent narrative on Iraq, and there still isn't. (Via Orin Kerr).

UPDATE: John Tabin asks what's winning and what's losing:

Our main "original objective" -- taking out Saddam Hussein's regime -- has already been achieved. Perhaps Fick is saying we can't leave behind a self-sustaining democracy. But I think the Kurds, at least, already have just that. If we keep a relatively small number of troops in Iraq indefinitely to enforce a partition and prevent a bloodbath, is that a loss? That is, more or less, how the Korean War ended (I know, it never "ended" in the technical sense, but you get my point). Did we lose Korea?

I think a lot of people thought so at the time, more or less. But in retrospect, no.

WELL, IF BILL CASEY CAN GIVE AN INTERVIEW AFTER HIS DEATH, why can't George Tenet have an imaginary conversation?

UPDATE: More Tenet reminiscences. Saddam would have nukes by 2007!

MAYBE WE CAN TRY THIS IN IRAQ, NEXT: Disarming the militias in Alabama.

TERROR IN BRITAIN: "Five Britons were found guilty on Monday of plotting to carry out al Qaeda-inspired bomb attacks across Britain potentially killing hundreds at targets ranging from nightclubs to trains and a shopping centre."

A LOU DOBBSESQUE TAKE on the sex scandal du jour: "Tobias was jetting off to the Third World for some nooky? What on earth for? We live in a f*cking melting pot, Josh. We have hookers of every race, creed, and color right here at home!"

EPISODE IV: A new hopelessness. Ed Driscoll takes lessons from Star Trek.

MICKEY KAUS on the fence: "Note that the Bush administration, despite Tony Snow's seemingly straightforward promises ('[T]he fence is going to be built'), has recently indicated that it plans to rely on a 'virtual fence,' not an actual fence. Again, what's odd is not that the administration has come out against an actual, physical barrier. That's obviously been Bush's real position all along. What's odd is that they'd reveal this real position while 'comprehensive' reform is being debated--instead of at least dangling the possibility of a real fence in front of anti-amnesty conservatives." Give 'em credit for honesty, I guess . . . .

April 29, 2007

AMITY SHLAES looks at "girlfriend salaries" at the World Bank. Apparently there are rather a lot of them. "In any case, the old corporate rule holds yet again: When salaries seem odd, something is out of balance -- just not always in the way you think."

RIDE BLOG TO THE SOUND OF THE GUNS: OMAR FADHIL reports from Baghdad.

JOHN TAMMES ON preparing for the worst.

TODAY'S FRED THOMPSON RALLY IN COOKEVILLE: I thought about going, but we've been a bit under the weather. But reader Jim Brown emails this YouTube video: "It was filmed and edited by my fifteen year old Grandson, Matthew Matheson. I was late in picking him up so he missed the first part of the rally. He makes and designs web sites and has all the latest technology and software to work with. He is young, but very good. Who knows? He might start making political commercials for the candidates."

I think he already has.

UPDATE: Dan Riehl doubts the Thompson campaign would approve. Er, well, if there were a Thompson campaign, anyway . . . .

He's probably right. But in YouTube politics, that's not the point, is it? You're going to get campaign videos by 15-year-olds about what they think is important, not about what the campaign thinks is important. And anyone who wants to go anywhere will have to learn to live with that, and work with it. It's all part of the growth of free agent media.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Matt Matheson asked me to embed a newer edit that he likes better, so I did. But for archival purposes, the original can be found here.

FREE CARBON OFFSETS! Sadly, these may be just as good as a lot of the others. . . .

VIA THE NEW YORK TIMES: surprisingly good news from Iraq. Especially surprising since it's via the New York Times. "Anbar Province, long the lawless heartland of the tenacious Sunni Arab resistance, is undergoing a surprising transformation. Violence is ebbing in many areas, shops and schools are reopening, police forces are growing and the insurgency appears to be in retreat."

(Via Tom Maguire, who has some thoughts on what it might mean).

UPDATE: Plus this New York Times report about Afghanistan: "Infant mortality has dropped by 18 percent in Afghanistan, one of the first real signs of recovery for the country five years after the fall of the Taliban regime, health officials said Thursday. . . . 40,000 to 50,000 fewer infants are dying now than in the Taliban era, Dr. Fatimi said."

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ace has an amusing take.

MORE: A look at what the Times left out. Surge? What surge?

Another reader cynically suggests that we'll see more good news in the near future -- having achieved their goal of persuading Americans to pull out, the press will loudly report some good news in order to protect themselves against postwar charges of bias. I think that's overly cynical.

STILL MORE: NYT: Late to the party.

MORE STILL: Criticizing the Times on the surge mention may be unfair. A Marine officer with knowledge in the area who asks that I not use his name emails:

I know a good bit more about things there than I can let on, but one thing I did want to email and make clear: There has been no surge of extra troops to Anbar yet. What has been accomplished thus far has been with the same force structure that has been more or less in place there for the past three years. I might even go so far as to say that the new strategy for the entire country -- begun in January -- had its genesis with the actions of one particular Marine battalion working in the far west in the fall of 2005.

It was so successful that its methods - which I won't go into - were adopted in some manner throughout Anbar and now we are seeing their fruits.

Worth noting. And this underscores a point made here before -- that the 'surge" isn't so much about more troops as it is about different tactics.

HILLARY CLINTON GETS strange new respect.

"TOTALLY MEAN AND IRRATIONAL:" I think the war between the Democratic establishment and the Netroots is heating up.

FROM ONE OF MY COLLEAGUES AT U.T., A LOOK AT NON-CORN-BASED ETHANOL:

Biomass can also be derived from residue left behind after forest products have been harvested or from the elements of corn left in the field to rot after the grain has been harvested. Cellulosic ethanol comes from the part of the corn plant not used for food.

So, in addition to corn grain-based ethanol, Tennessee has an array of potential new energy sources from biomass - cellulosic ethanol. This expands ethanol's potential availability well beyond corn grain, which greatly expands our alternative fuel options - and in no way competes with any utilization of corn.

A unit of corn ethanol, made from grain, yields about 40 percent more energy than it takes to produce that unit, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

A unit of cellulosic ethanol yields more than 500 percent of the energy that goes into producing it. In contrast, gasoline made from petroleum returns 20 percent less energy than it takes to produce it.

That's why cellulosic ethanol is the future of energy.

Since cellulosic ethanol can already be made in the lab, the next challenge is to make it at the commercial scale.

The only political downside is that this isn't likely to win the kind of enthusiastic support from corn farmers that corn-based ethanol enjoys. But it seems to me that ethanol from waste biomass is a lot better than ethanol that's made from . . . food.

UPDATE: The prospect of making fuel from waste biomass inspires reader Brian Cubbison to utter a single magic word: "Kudzu."

Watch out, Saudis!

CROSS-CULTURAL TOILET COMPARISONS.

JOHN WIXTED: "Awareness of al Qaeda is slowly growing in the minds of mainstream media reporters who have been hamstrung by the civil war schema that they simply cannot get out of their heads. Even so, there is not the slightest mention of the fact that al Qaeda was probably behind yesterday's bombing. . . . Just because you don't want to reinforce Bush's claim that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror is no reason to be deliberately misleading when presenting the news from Iraq."

But, he says, Reuters got it right. No, really.

"SLAM DUNK:" "This country faces important tasks, like completing the liberation and stabilization of Iraq and stopping Iran's Islamofascist regime in Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. Why, with a global war on terror to win, are we wasting time worrying about a years-old quip?"

Because Tenet, who should have been fired shortly after 9/11, is still trying to justify himself. As are a lot of press, pundits, and politicians who supported the war in 2002 and 2003, and who often went on about Saddam's threat as far back as the 1990s, but are trying to execute a pivot in time for 2008. But read the whole thing. And don't miss the video here.

Oh, hell, I'll just embed it below:

FANS AND CRITICS for Nancy Pelosi: The Washington Post is surprisingly critical.

ANOTHER ANTI-ISLAMIST PROTEST in Turkey.

PRIVATE GROUPS MONOPOLIZING PUBLIC LANDS: "This finding should not be particularly surprising. 'Public' lands are political lands. Management and access rules are ultimately driven by political considerations, and this gives concentrated interest groups and well-heeled organizations a leg up."

ANOTHER SPACE VENTURE TAKES OFF:

The cremated remains of Star Trek actor James Doohan and Apollo 7 astronaut Gordon Cooper soared into suborbital space today aboard a rocket launched in the New Mexico desert.

The launch was the first success at a commercial spaceport being developed in the southern part of the state.

The rocket was fired by Suzan Cooper and Wende Doohan, who sent the missile carrying small amounts of their husbands' ashes into the sky at 8:56 a.m.

The rocket soon plummeted back to Earth as planned at the White Sands Missile Range.

About 200 other families paid $495 each to have their loved ones' ashes sent into space aboard the Spaceloft X-L rocket.

Bill Richardson deserves a spot of credit, too, as he's been good about pushing the New Mexico spaceport.

UPDATE: More here.

TROUBLING THOUGHTS ON IRAQ, from Rick Moran. Sadly, I agree that our domestic political situation will make constructive action difficult. As I've said before, it was obvious in the 1990s that we had a dysfunctional political class, but it's become much more obvious in the current decade. (Via TMV). And yes, time's the enemy now. Pentagon planners talk about the "three year rule" for domestic support in a war, and it's been four -- five if you count Afghanistan.

UPDATE: More thoughts here.

FIRE MELTS STEEL: Somebody tell Rosie O'Donnell.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: "Will someone explain to me why I have to hurry and beat the After Church Rush to get a seat in the smoking section of a bar?"

UNREST IN IRAN: May it strengthen and spread.

MAYBE THERE'S HOPE: The Dangerous Book for Boys, a politically incorrect work indeed, has topped the sales charts in the UK and it's now shipping in the United States. More on that book, and its writers' views about the overly safe PC culture that surrounds kids today, here.

UPDATE: Great line from the comments: "I rode myself two miles to baseball practice and back all summer. The proportion of child molesters was probably the same as today, but there was no 24-hour news cycle, so we were free."

ACROSS THE COUNTRY IN A "SMART CAR" AT 48 MILES PER GALLON: This is interesting, but I'm not all that impressed. My mother just traded in her 12-year-old Saturn SL, which routinely got over 40 mpg on the highway. It was a bit sluggish, but it had four doors. The compromises made here to get a bit more don't seem worth it.

She replaced the Saturn -- she loved it, but at 165K+ miles it was time -- with a Honda Civic. She likes it, and she's getting 36 mpg in mixed driving, so I imagine that with her legendarily frugal driving style she could get around 40 on the highway. Is it worth chopping off the back half of the car to get 48?

UPDATE: Alex del Castillo emails: "Have we unlearned something? I remember my boss's zippy little CRX getting 50 real world MPG in New Orleans back in 86. One would think that 20 years later we could do better than the Smart Car. I am not prone to conspiracy theory, but it almost seems as if they are sandbagging..."

I don't think it's that. Extra safety requirements added weight, and consumers quit caring about mileage.

IN TODAY'S NYT: CARBON-NEUTRAL IS HIP, BUT IS IT GREEN?

On this, environmentalists aren’t neutral, and they don’t agree. Some believe it helps build support, but others argue that these purchases don’t accomplish anything meaningful — other than giving someone a slightly better feeling (or greener reputation) after buying a 6,000-square-foot house or passing the million-mile mark in a frequent-flier program. In fact, to many environmentalists, the carbon-neutral campaign is a sign of the times — easy on the sacrifice and big on the consumerism.

As long as the use of fossil fuels keeps climbing — which is happening relentlessly around the world — the emission of greenhouse gases will keep rising. The average American, by several estimates, generates more than 20 tons of carbon dioxide or related gases a year; the average resident of the planet about 4.5 tons.

At this rate, environmentalists say, buying someone else’s squelched emissions is all but insignificant.

“The worst of the carbon-offset programs resemble the Catholic Church’s sale of indulgences back before the Reformation,” said Denis Hayes, the president of the Bullitt Foundation, an environmental grant-making group. “Instead of reducing their carbon footprints, people take private jets and stretch limos, and then think they can buy an indulgence to forgive their sins.”

“This whole game is badly in need of a modern Martin Luther,” Mr. Hayes added.

Read the whole thing.

JAMES TABOR lists five books he likes on the theme of man vs. nature. It's not quite the same thing, but to that list I'd add David Baron's excellent book, The Beast in the Garden: The True Story of a Predator's Deadly Return to Suburban America. In fact, there's probably a deep sociological point in the contrast between this book, and the books that Tabor discusses.

GLOBAL WARMING, GLOBAL COOLING, and a Blue Oyster Cult reference, all in one post.

ERIC MULLER HAS A ROUNDUP of all his posts on Uncle Leo and the Holocaust. And Doug Weinstein has some thoughts.

SCHLOCK AND AWE: "And here we thought shock and awe was about bringing Saddam Hussein to his knees." Heh.

GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS, from Jules Crittenden.