GEORGE SOROS LOSES IT.

No, you are not seeing things. He said de-Nazification. He is not saying, in the traditional manner of liberal alarmists, that the United States is now where Weimar Germany was. He is saying that the United States is now where Germany after Weimar was. Even for Davos, this was stupid. Actually, worse than stupid. There is a historical analysis, a moral claim, in Soros’s word. He believes that the United States is now a Nazi country. Why else would we have to go through a “certain de-Nazification process”? I defy anybody to interpret the remark differently. The analogy between Bush’s America and Hitler’s Germany is not fleshed out, and one is left wondering how far he would take it. Is Bush like Hitler? If it is “de-Nazification” that we need, then in some sense Bush must be like Hitler. Was the invasion of Iraq like the invasion of Poland? Perhaps. The more one lingers over Soros’s word, the more one’s eyes pop from one’s head. In the old days, the Amerika view of America was propagated by angry kids on their painful way to adulthood; now, it is propagated by the Maecenas of the Democratic Party. . . . In the same conversation at Davos, Soros announced that he is supporting Senator Barack Obama, though he would also support Senator Hillary Clinton. So my question to both of those progressives is this: How, without any explanation or apology from him, will you take this man’s money?

More here.

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN BAGHDAD: A roundup from The Mudville Gazette.

HE CHOSE POORLY.

HE CHOSE POORLY.

SCIENTOLOGY CRITIC KEITH HENSON has been arrested. The whole story seems rather fishy to me, as is so often the case where these guys are involved.

There’s also a Free Keith Henson blog.

PRINCEBLOGGING the Super Bowl.

UPDATE: I think the Robert Goulet commercial from Emerald Nuts was the best. Follow the link to see it.

So far, Bill Richardson and Rudy Giuliani are the runaway favorites among InstaPundit readers.

TOM MAGUIRE: “One might have hoped that, two weeks into the Libby trial, the basic facts of the case would be clear to the reporters and editors at the Washington Post.”

BIZZYBLOG HAS MORE on the spitting denial issue that I linked to earlier.

Michael Yon is back in Iraq, where he’s been for over a month now. We caught up to him via satellite phone this afternoon and got his views on the surge (it will be “unlike anything we’ve seen before”), the status of Iraqi security forces (they’ve made “tremendous progress” since he was there last year, but things are “still dicey”), evidence of Iranian involvement in terror attacks in Iraq, what the Iraqi public thinks, and much more. Plus a couple of “normal explosions” in the background.

You can listen directly — no downloading needed — by going here and clicking on the gray Flash player. Or you can download the file directly by clicking right here. And there’s a lo-fi version, suitable for dialup, etc., available by going here and selecting lo-fi. Or, of course, you can always subscribe via iTunes. We like that. And our show archives are online at GlennandHelenShow.com — check up on past episodes there.

Music is “Superluminal,” by Mobius Dick. This podcast is brought to you by Volvo USA — buy a Volvo and tell ‘em we sent you!

FROM BROADCAST TECHNOLOGY TO BETTING: A Super Bowl roundup at Popular Mechanics.

FRANCE INVADED by Islamic Creationism. I think we’ve also discovered the Islamic Max Headroom, judging by the author photo.

UPDATE: Reader John O’Connor emails: “While I appreciate the reference to Max Headroom in your post regarding Islamic Creationism, doesn’t another pop culture reference better apply to an Islamic creationist who has adopted the name Yahya? Think about it, Monkey Boy!”

It all makes sense, now. And Frank Wilson has a question.

IT’S HARDER TO DO this sort of thing in the days of the Internet.

DOG TALES FOR EVERYKID.

COMPACT FLUORESCENT UPDATE: I noted a while back that I was getting good results with the GE compact fluorescent 75, a 75-watt “equivalent” bulb that produces attractive indoor light. On a reader’s recommendation, I also ordered some of the 100 watt equivalent bulbs in the same line. I installed a couple last night and they look fine — as good as the 75s, just a bit brighter.

I’m gradually replacing bulbs in the house, and have now switched about a dozen to fluorescent lights. According to these numbers, if everyone did that it would be the equivalent of taking about 15 million cars off the road. Most importantly, it’s a fairly painless change. The bulbs cost a bit more, but if they save me the trouble of changing lightbulbs all the time it’s worth it. And the light quality is entirely acceptable. This is what I meant in my post below about non-hairshirt approaches.

UPDATE: Reader Fred Butzen writes:

Thanks to your recommendation, we’ve been replacing our incandescent bulbs with fluorescents, at least in areas where we turn on the lights and leave them on for extended periods – principally the kitchen, porches, and bedrooms. The quality of light is almost as good as with an incandescent bulb; in the kitchen, we use the fluorescents mixed with a single incandescent, and the quality of light is excellent.

In Chicago, Commonwealth Edison is subsidizing the bulbs – you can get what’s the equivalent of a 60- or 100-watt bulb for about a buck. Given the cost of building peak capacity, the subsidy makes a lot of sense for ConEd.

However, we have had a bum bulb, which conked out after less than a month.

You get bum bulbs with incandescents, too, though you’re not out as much. Unless Comm Ed is subsidizing you! And yeah, this does make sense for them.

Related thoughts here.

MICKEY KAUS: “Do ‘hate crime’ laws lower racial tensions or raise them? I’m not sure it isn’t the latter.”

I’m not sure that’s entirely accidental: “Chaos umpire sits, And by decision more embroils the fray By which he reigns.”

ANN ALTHOUSE: “Where’s the photograph of the bear chomping down on a cute baby seal?”

UPDATE: This is interesting.

WOMEN INSIST THEY GET BETTER WITH AGE: Actually, as someone who’s married to a woman who gets a day older with each passing day, I’d say that’s true. My wife was delightful when I married her, but she’s only gotten better with the passage of time.

DAVE HARDY NOTES THE THUNE-NELSON national CCW reciprocity bill. (PDF version of the bill is here.) Of course, as one of his commenters notes, it would have been better to have pushed this when the GOP was in the majority. Heck, if they’d pushed it then, they might still be in the majority. On the other hand, the bill has bipartisan sponsorship, so it’ll be interesting to see how many more Democrats jump on board. It’s certainly a moderate alternative to laws involving compulsory arms-bearing.

THE FIRST BLOG SCANDAL of Campaign 2008.

GLOBAL WARMING ambivalence: They were for jet travel before they were against it!

HILLARY WON’T RULE OUT USE OF FORCE AGAINST IRAN.

MY EARLIER POST ON GLOBAL WARMING AND THE NEED FOR A BAN ON PRIVATE JETS led one reader to ask me for some constructive thoughts, as opposed to snark. Fair enough, though if things are as bad as they say, a ban on private jets would be constructive, no? Or, if not, it’s probably because it’ll never happen, as the fatcats take care of their own. Which raises other issues . . . .

But, that said, I suppose I should offer more than criticism of media hype and celebrities’ and politicians’ posturing, even if mocking those things is itself a major and constructive contribution, and one at which the blogosphere excels.

Do I “believe in ” global warming? In the sense that the world seems to be warmer now than in recent history, yes. The more apocalyptic scenarios seem to me to remain unproven, but certainly cause for concern.

Do I believe that global warming is anthropogenic? Not so clear. Plausible, but still far from certain.

Does this matter? Probably not. Regardless of what you think of the above, burning carbon is a lousy idea. Coal and oil are, over the long term, far more valuable as chemical feedstocks than as fuels anyway, and burning them is unacceptably filthy regardless of greenhouse issues. We should replace them as soon as possible with nice, clean, greenhouse-friendly nuclear plants and other environmentally friendly power technologies. Burning less carbon is good planetary hygiene, and good practice generally, regardless of what you think of global warming. So, I suppose, in a way we should be pursuing global warming remedies regardless of what you think about global warming.

Over the medium-term, things like the above can make a big difference in the amount of carbon that America produces, especially when connected to other carbon-friendly technologies like plug-in hybrids, electric cars, etc. Over the longer-term, things like nanotechnology are likely to render the problem moot, but it will be several decades before that happens.

In the short term, there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit. I’ve been looking at compact fluorescent lights, which save a significant amount of power, and I’ve written a column on some related ideas for enhancing energy efficiency that are worthy of more attention than they’ve gotten.

What about a carbon tax? In principle, it might be an okay idea — though I note that claims that it will spur technological advance are iffy, as Europe, which has very high gas taxes, hasn’t been a hotbed of innovation in automotive efficiency. What’s more, I worry that the advocates of a carbon tax are in fact often more excited about the “tax” part than the “carbon” part. If something like this is enacted, it should be revenue-neutral, with offsetting cuts elsewhere. Eliminate the income tax in favor of carbon taxes? On that, we can talk.

At any rate, Kyoto — despite the way it has been misrepresented in the press — could never pass even when the Democrats were in charge, and wouldn’t make much difference even if the U.S. was a party, and if Europe wasn’t engaged in rampant cheating. (“In truth, Europe’s CO2 emissions are rising twice as fast as those of the U.S. since Kyoto, three times as fast since 2000. “) The fastest-growing producers of CO₂ are in Asia, and won’t slow their economic growth significantly in order to fight the greenhouse effect — and they would have difficulty in doing so even if they wanted to. Short of Bush nuking the Saudi and Iranian oil fields (defunding terrorism and stopping global warming in one blow!) no single change we can make is going to make a big difference. I’m all for more research on more efficient technologies, but that takes time.

One thing that I think is important: Energy conservation needs to be something positive. Nothing sells on a “suffer for the future” model very well. Too many environmental activists are hair-shirt types (at least when the hair-shirt is for other people) and that stuff is poor salesmanship. Martin Eberhard, of Tesla Roadster fame, is right when he says that many early electric cars were “punishment cars,” predicated on the notion that driving was inherently suspect. Make electric cars fun, and useful, and people will want them. This lesson applies to lots of other things, too. Neo-puritanism, on the other hand, has a certain personal and political appeal to some people, but it doesn’t sell beyond its niche. The less scold, the more sold.

Of course, none of this is to say that a ban on private jets wouldn’t help, too . . . .

UPDATE: On the other hand, Donald Sensing wonders what if global warming is a good thing? Interesting argument. It wouldn’t change my position — nothing short of a Fallen Angels scenario, in which human greenhouse gases are all that’s holding off a new Ice Age, would — but that’s because my position doesn’t turn on global warming one way or another.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Is the AEI buying climate scholars? Doesn’t sound any worse than what the Joyce Foundation does on gun studies. I eagerly await Big Media outrage on that topic . . . .

But the beauty of things from my perspective is that it doesn’t matter, because my position doesn’t turn on global warming one way or another.

MORE: “JetBusters?” Heh. Why not? Stay tuned . . . .

A PHOTO-ILLUSTRATED VERSION of my lamb-stew recipe. Looks good!

UPDATE: And here’s how it turned out.

BUT IT’S NOT A CIVIL WAR (CONT’D):

Ignoring a truce and Arab mediation offers, Hamas and Fatah fighters exchanged gunfire in upscale beachfront neighborhoods Saturday, and Hamas gunmen threatened to attack high-rise buildings unless residents force rival snipers off their rooftops. . . .

Nasser Mushtaha, who owns a high-rise near President Mahmoud Abbas’ compound, said members of Abbas’ Presidential Guard were posted on his roof and at the entrance to the building. He said he received phone calls from Hamas members, who warned they would blow up the building unless the troops left. Some of the guardsmen refused.

Mushtaha complained about his building being used as an outpost. “Who will protect us? What is our fault? We are neither Fatah nor Hamas,” he said, adding that dozens of windows had already been shattered by bullets.

If the Israelis were doing this, instead of Hamas, we’d already be hearing charges of “war crimes.”

DESKTOP FABRICATION:

It’s called Fab@Home, and it’s an open-source, desktop size fabrication rig; essentially a 3-dimesional printer. What the system allows you to do is fabricate complex parts with a simple, low cost rig. All you need are the materials and the geometric information, and you’re on your way to making that fancy AutoBlog belt buckle.

The practice of building up a part drip-by-drip is known in the industry as rapid prototyping. It allows one group of people to essentially send a part as an email. You could be working on a doorhandle in Detroit and email it to your OEM in China, where they “print” the design and evaluate it. Pretty slick. The Fab@Home project is an undertaking of Cornell University, with the goal of democratizing innovation. Just as the desktop computer revolution was driven by innovation from all quarters, the Fab@Home system is a low-cost system that should be easily customized as it gets used for different materials and functions.

I’ve written about this before, and of course Neal Gershenfeld has a whole book about it, but it’s still quite cool to see it progressing. (Thanks to Mickey Kaus for the tip.)

“MOSQUES DESTROYED:” The AP “Reign of Error” continues.

SO DOES THIS REPRESENT ANOTHER ESCALATION in the bumper-sticker wars over evolution? . . . Heh.

UPDATE: Yes, I know where it’s really from. I just thought that was funny.

BUT IT’S NOT A CIVIL WAR:

Fatah and Hamas clashed at Cabinet ministries, universities and security headquarters Saturday in defiance of a truce that was to have calmed the seething Gaza Strip.

Twelve people were wounded by late morning, hospital officials said, and Fatah said Hamas had kidnapped 40 of its security officials at roadblocks.

All of this, shockingly, in violation of a cease fire agreement. It seems that Palestinians are as prone to cheat on these agreements when they’re with other Palestinians as when they’re with Israelis. I suppose the Israelis can take an obscure comfort in that.

PATERNALIST SLOPES: ” A growing literature in law and public policy harnesses research in behavioral economics to justify a new form of paternalism. Contributors to this literature typically emphasize the modest, non-intrusive character of their proposals. . . . We argue that the new paternalism exhibits many characteristics identified by the slopes literature as conducive to slippery slopes. Specifically, the new paternalism exhibits considerable theoretical and empirical vagueness, making it vulnerable to slopes resulting from altered economic incentives, enforcement needs, deference to perceived authority, bias toward simple principles, and reframing of the status quo. These slope processes are especially likely when decisionmakers are subject to cognitive biases — as the new paternalists insist they are. Consequently, soft paternalism can pave the way for harder paternalism. We conclude that policymaking based on new paternalist reasoning should be considered with greater trepidation than its advocates have suggested.” (Via Larry Solum).

MARY KATHARINE HAM explains how to win in Al-Anbar.

JASON VAN STEENWYK looks at efforts to erase history.

UPDATE: In the comments, a reference to Bob Greene’s The Homecoming, which is described this way by Library Journal:

“Were you ever spat upon when you returned home to the United States?” asked syndicated columnist Greene of the Vietnam veterans among his readership. He received over 1000 letters in reply, many recounting specific details of just such a painfully remembered incident. Evidently this recollection of “hippies” (as they are often called in the letters) spitting on combat veterans has become one of the war’s most unpleasant, enduring images.

This would seem to pose problems for the new crowd of spitting-denialists, though they will no doubt manage to maintain their unbelief.

UPDATE: Read this post from Jim Lindgren, too.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Much more on the troop-spitting debate.

MORE: The final word?

Yeah, and although this post doesn’t mention people like me, I was a red-hot leftist (marxist) revolutionary back then, and I did spit on a couple of returning vets. From the safety of a crowd, behind a barricade and a police line.

I was an America-hating asshole and a coward. I’ve learned better, and I’ve learned to feel regret for my shameful actions then.

Proof that people can change for the better. Read the whole thing.

DAN RIEHL: “It appears you’d better be able to read Chinese if you want to read any of the positive stories out of Iraq these days.”

THIS WEEK’S Blog Week in Review is up.

IS THE IPHONE a futurebomb?

WHEN LIBERTARIANS GOVERN: They get pushback:

The Cape Coral utilities manager was impressive and forceful. At one point he said, “Citizens don’t protect themselves so we have to.” He concluded, “You may as well keep this program because if you don’t we will find a way to continue, and the taxpayers won’t save a dime.” . . .

turned my attention to both our employees and said, “I feel sad that I am about to vote to end your jobs but I am going to do what I believe is right, not what I think is nice.”

I now know how uncomfortable and awkward it feels to look government workers in the eye and tell them “You’re fired.” I felt sad for the two men whose income was lost and at the same time I felt exhilarated thinking of the thousands of taxpayers who will keep more of their own money.

Read the whole thing.

RIDING THE PORK TRAIN WITH JOHN THUNE: PorkBusters is on the case.

THE TENNESSEE BLOG BILL IS ONLY MOSTLY DEAD: And as we know, there’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive.

UPDATE: Comments from Jack Balkin. I agree that this bill wouldn’t pass muster.

JEFF JARVIS: “Perhaps the most important ‘ding’ moment I had at Davos was that the powerful are, no surprise, one step behind in their understanding of the true significance of the internet: They think it is all about individual action when, in truth, it’s about collective action. And so they don’t yet see that the internet will shift power even more than they realize.”

Gee, it sounds like they need some educating.

HEH: “McDonald’s beats Starbucks in coffee smackdown.”

I GUESS IT’S GOOD WE ELECTED THE DEMOCRATS:

If on the day after the 2006 election someone had told you that a few months into 2007 we would be increasing troop levels in Iraq and committing to a somewhat more aggressive strategy with a somewhat more aggressive commander, and would be set to enact a 2007 budget that largely stuck to 06 spending levels with a few adjustments and no earmarks, wouldn’t you have thought he was crazy?

Thanks, Nancy!

THOSE IRANIANS sure do get around.

THE SEA LAUNCH ROCKET EXPLOSION: A report, with video.

NUMBER PROBLEMS for Tim Lambert? Color me unsurprised.

UPDATE: Lambert says the Blair criticism above is wrong. It’s 79 that’s similar to 88, not 59, he says.

In a related matter, rumors that Lambert once asked a date for “96″ on the ground that it’s “similar to” 69 are probably false.

MORE: I don’t think Lambert actually meant to accuse me of sock puppetry, but for the record I haven’t posted on his site. He must have me confused with a different Glenn.

“WHERE ARKIN SCREWED UP:”

I don’t want to write about this again, but here is where military/homeland security blogger Bill Arkin of the Washington Post went wrong: He picked on a kid.

Ernie Pyle never did. The American reporter takes on the brass, never the troops.

Arkin’s woes began when Spec. Tyler Johnson, 21, was asked by NBC News what he thought of the war protesters. . . . The kid was asked a question. He answered it honestly. Arkin should back off.

Arkin has dug himself deeper and deeper on this one, and I started out as someone who liked him okay.

UPDATE: More on the Arkin story, from StrategyPage.

More here.

WORKER ANGST? NOT SO MUCH:

While there’s been plenty of talk about growing income inequality and worker angst–often by me–Americans have been getting more optimistic. Here are the key takeaways from today’s University of Michigan consumer confidence survey, via the good folks at Global Insight:

1) The survey catapulted to a two-year high of 96.9 in January, up from 91.7 in December.

2) Sentiment for current economic conditions scaled up by 3.2 points to 111.3.

3) The bellwether expectations index exploded upward by 6.4 points to 87.6.

None of this should really be too surprising, with the economy climbing at a 3.4 percent clip last year (including 3.5 percent in the fourth quarter), jobs growing by nearly 200,000 a month, wages increasing more than 4 percent, and real disposable personal income rising more than twice as fast as in 2005. Even better, the Federal Reserve looks as if it’s stuck on pause in fiddling with interest rates. In a conference call today, Bruce Kasman, the chief economist at JPMorgan Chase, described the current climate as “Goldilocks walking in.” Remember, income inequality supposedly surged in the late 1990s, but you didn’t hear much about it then because everyone’s wages and incomes were growing, as was the broader economy.

It’s all because the Democrats are back. Thanks Nancy!

UH OH.

UPDATE: An Airbrush Award for Amanda Marcotte: “Let’s see if there is a final word from the Edwards campaign as well. And when will people learn that Google cache means, ‘Forever.’”

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here and here.

A LOOK AT Europe and the death penalty.

THOUGHTS ON THE BUDGET, from The Economist:

The historical average for tax revenues as a percentage of GDP for the last 45 years—roughly, the span of the modern taxation era—is 18.2%; in 2006, the government collected 18.4% of GDP as tax revenues. Even if you throw out the Bush budgets of 2002-2006, the average rises only a tenth of a percent, meaning that America is still above its historical average. The same holds true for budget deficits. The historical average is 1.6% with the Bush years, 1.5% without, making last year’s 1.8% budget deficit look less than outlandishly out of line.

The interesting thing is that no one knows these happy facts. Democrats are still harping on budget deficits as if (a cynic would say “because”) they were a gigantic mess, rather than a shrinking problem. This is not an excuse for running deficits, of course; there is no reason that a prosperous nation should be borrowing money to run its government when the economy is booming. But America’s budget deficit is small enough that it is now unlikely to be having any sort of measurable effect on the economy, and inflation and economic growth will quickly erode the value of recently accumulated debt. Mr Bush may leave a large number of problematic legacies for future generations, but the revenue shortfalls of recent years will not be noticed among them.

Read the whole thing. It’s no reason to lighten up on pork, though.

OKAY, WE’RE NOT NUMBER ONE, but we’re number four!

BOB OWENS notes that a comment by Kos at the WaPo doesn’t sound genuine. I emailed Markos and he responds: “Yeah, it’s bogus. I alerted the WaPo about it but my email seems to have been ignored. There’s been a rash of that lately — people impersonating me. I suppose it’s an occupational hazard.”

It’s the Internet. Beware.

UPDATE: Like I said, beware. An occupational hazard, indeed.

MICHAEL YON POSTS A NEW DISPATCH FROM IRAQ:

In the retelling of terrorist attacks in Iraq, key details are often left out while others insinuate themselves into places they don’t belong. So it was for the thwarted bomb attack in this village, which quickly found its way into media reports, described as yet another incident of sectarian violence, which on some level it was.

But not as reported. Read the whole thing.

KIMBERLY STRASSEL: “The Senate is teeming with courageous souls these days, most of them Republicans who have taken that brave step of following the opinion polls and abandoning their president in a time of war. Meanwhile, one of the few senators showing some backbone in the Iraq debate is being shunned as the skunk at the war critics’ party.” She’s referring to Russ Feingold.

HANKY PANKY at the Iraq Study Group?

DICK MORRIS: “Obama is like a stem cell. He can become any part of the body he wants to be!”

IN THE MAIL: My law school classmate Daniel Esty’s book, Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage. All this global warming stuff should produce lots of lucrative consulting opportunities. Good for him!

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: “We have made a lot of mistakes in Iraq. But when Arabs kill Arabs and Shiites kill Shiites and Sunnis kill all in a spasm of violence that is blind and furious and has roots in hatreds born long before America was even a republic, to place the blame on the one player, the one country, the one military that has done more than any other to try to separate the combatants and bring conciliation is simply perverse. It infantilizes Arabs. It demonizes Americans. It willfully overlooks the plainest of facts: Iraq is their country. We midwifed their freedom. They chose civil war.”

UPDATE: Tom Holsinger emails: “Krauthammer is blaming the victim. Many if not most of Iraq’s Sunni Arabs insist on slaughtering Shiite civiilians to regain power for the Sunnis. The only way the Shiites can stop this is to ethnically cleanse Iraq of Sunni Arabs. Krauthammer thinks that, if the Shiites don’t fight back, the Sunnis won’t kill them. This is blaming the victim.”

I think that overstates things, as the Shiites are doing a lot more than defending themselves, as the business about ethnic cleansing demonstrates. I agree that the Sunnis were idiots to start a civil war in which they were so completely outnumbered, but there’s more going on here than simple self-defense.

MIKE BLOOMBERG BLOWS IT? “Bloomberg’s actions have put active law enforcement investigations at risk, and his city’s attorneys have given Officer Enchautegui’s family the cold shoulder as they search for answers in his death.”

GETTING IT WRONG, in a story on avian flu from the NYT. “The comment is a push comment– a mini-editorial in the NY Times. In fact, his comment is either a bit misleading or gives an incomplete picture of the national response.”

DANNY GLOVER LOOKS AT anti-blog hysteria in the state capitals.

THE SAVINGS RATE: Much better than reported.

IT WAS COLD AND SNOWY HERE YESTERDAY, so I made the lamb and guinness stew. It was delicious, and we took some over to my mother-in-law, who was quite appreciative.

BORIS JOHNSON: ” I’ll tell you why women are running out of men to marry.”

THE BIG GLOBAL WARMING PUSH IS UNDERWAY: I won’t take it seriously until they ban private jets and stretch limos.

No, seriously. A Gulfstream III releases 10,000 pounds of carbon dioxide an hour. How can we demand “sacrifice” from ordinary Americans when our leaders — including those who call for the sacrifice — are flying in jets like this? If commercial first-class isn’t good enough, they should stay home.

UPDATE: Don Surber:

I saw Barbara Boxer on the “Larry King Show.” She said the debate is over. That statement of finality is more harmful than all the emissions from all the SUVs ever built. The politicians are using this to expand their power. This is the Patriot Act on steroids.

Like I said, I’ll believe it when they give up private jets and stretch limos.

MORE: People wonder how a jet can emit more carbon dioxide by weight than it consumes in fuel. It’s not hard, when you remember that the oxygen (making up more than 2/3 of the mass of C02) comes from the air, with the fuel supplying the carbon. The numbers I link above come from the anti-greenhouse Terrapass folks; I haven’t independently checked them, but they seem reasonable to me.

SOME SUGGESTIONS on how to fill the time while you’re waiting for the new Harry Potter book.

I’VE BEEN WRITING ABOUT THIS for a long, long, long time, and now something seems to be finally happening:

Gov. Charlie Crist announced plans on Thursday to abandon the touch-screen voting machines that many of Florida’s counties installed after the disputed 2000 presidential election. The state will instead adopt a system of casting paper ballots counted by scanning machines in time for the 2008 presidential election. Voting experts said Florida’s move, coupled with new federal voting legislation expected to pass this year, could be the death knell for the paperless electronic touch-screen machines. If as expected the Florida Legislature approves the $32.5 million cost of the change, it would be the nation’s biggest repudiation yet of touch-screen voting, which was widely embraced after the 2000 recount as a state-of-the-art means of restoring confidence that every vote would count.

Much of the unhappiness with electronic voting was mere conspiracy-theory sour grapes, as demonstrated by the fact that we suddenly didn’t hear much complaining once the Democrats won an election. But the underlying point that I’ve been hammering for years, that elections must not only be trustworthy, but must be obviously trustworthy, is a good one. Electronic machines are a black box, and harder to trust. Easier to trust systems are inherently good.

I MEANT TO LINK THIS LAST NIGHT, but couldn’t: Arnold Kling’s call to libertarian conservatives. Don’t miss it.

HAGELIAN COURAGE: Mickey Kaus notes that Senators are leaving themselves wiggle room in case the surge works. As I’ve noted, they’re trying to have it both ways, but I don’t think they’ll fool anyone. More likely outcome is that Hagel, Warner, et al., will look bad no matter what. Plus, Kaus looks at Hillary, Eisenhower, and Korea!

John McCain, meanwhile, is taking a different approach.

UPDATE: More on hedging here, from Victor Davis Hanson.

ANOTHER UPDATE: “Goodbye, GOP. It’s been, you know, nice.”

Meanwhile, Hugh Hewitt likes the McCain resolution.

YES, INSTAPUNDIT WAS DOWN LAST NIGHT: Or, more accurately, unreachable because of a combination of router problems and a cut cable. I posted a note at the backup site but just took it as a sign to stay away from the computer for an evening. It was nice . . . .

I’LL BE ON CAM EDWARDS’ RADIO SHOW in a few minutes (listen live at the link) talking about guns and gun control. If you’re coming here from the show, the New York Times oped on mandatory gun ownership laws is here, and I’ve got much, much more on the subject in It Takes a Militia: A Communitarian Case for Compulsory Arms-Bearing, which is available for free download at the link.

REMEMBERING THE COLUMBIA DISASTER, four years later. Hard to believe it’s been four years.

A MICROSOFT ZUNE PHONE is supposedly coming, and actually sounds like it might be decent. I’d like something that connects to wi-fi, EVDO, or cellular based on what’s available, and always gives me the fastest connection it can get.

HOWARD DEAN declares victory, thanks Republican Senators.

Plus, Dems ahead of Republicans in opposition research.

SENATORS WEIGH IN on the infamous Arkin blog post. And so does Professor Bainbridge, who is quoting Lord Salisbury.

UPDATE: Now you see it, now you don’t?

LOTS MORE DUKE NEWS, from K.C. Johnson.

RED QUEEN’S RACE: Ed Driscoll looks at the future of the media.

BIZARRE DEATH WISH UPDATE:

Pollster Frank Luntz for the past decade issued warnings to his fellow Republicans that they did not want to hear, but never has been so out of touch with them as he is today. “The Republican message machine is a skeleton of its former self,” Luntz told me. “These people have no idea how the American people react to them.”

Luntz sees a disconnect between Republicans and voters that projects a grim future for the party. That contradicts what House and Senate Republicans are saying to each other in closed party conferences. While Luntz views 2006 election defeats as ominous portents, the party’s congressional leaders see only transitory setbacks and now dwell on bashing Democrats.

Back when we talked to Ken Mehlman last spring the GOP seemed to be out of touch and in denial. And that was before the elections.

UPDATE: Bob Krumm:

If at any time in the last fifteen years you had told me that I would consider supporting Hillary Clinton over one of the possible Republican presidential nominees, I would have accused you of being drunk. But here I am, soberly in realization of the fact that on foreign policy, at least, Hillary Clinton is preferable to Republican Senator Chuck Hagel.

There’s a lot more of this kind of thing out there than GOP folks in Washington appreciate.

INSTAPUNK IS GOING TO IRAQ.

FROM MARK BLUMENTHAL: A look at how Rudy Giuliani is polling.

I´M BLOGGING via the Nokia N800 internet tablet. Kind of nifty, but typing with a stylus is a bit awkward. I’m reviewing it for Popular Mechanics.

FREE SPEECH ping-pong.

GOOGLE NEWS SEEMS TO BE DOWN, but Ask News is working just fine. Google seems to be having problems that go way beyond Blogger alone.

JOHN LEO looks at free speech on campus, or the lack thereof.

JUST FINISHED WATCHING J.D. JOHANNES’ IRAQ DOCUMENTARY, Outside the Wire. It’s really good — very first-person, lots of raw footage, lots of one-on-one with the Marines he accompanied. It’s the kind of thing that should be reaching a much, much wider audience.

UPDATE: I’ve bumped this up to the top, because I posted it late last night and I want to be sure it gets noticed. There’s an online trailer here.

SILENCING BLOGGERS IN TENNESSEE? I think that this legislation would probably fail under both the Federal and Tennessee constitutions; requiring publishers to take down content upon an allegation of libel would seem to go beyond the sort of thing already struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in Tornillo, and the Tennessee Constitution is supposedly more protective of free speech than the Federal constitution, though there’s not much elaboration on that in the caselaw. The provision would also seem to be preempted by the federal Communications Decency Act.

I have more thoughts on libel, the CDA, and efforts to silence bloggers here. Legal analysis aside, it seems like it’s mostly an effort to protect incumbent politicians from scrutiny.

UPDATE: That was fast! The bill is being withdrawn, according to an update to the post linked above.

THEY’VE ANNOUNCED THE PUBLICATION DATE for the Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and Brendan Loy isn’t happy since it’s just before the bar exam. He opines that J.K. Rowling must want him to fail the bar.

ANN ALTHOUSE HAS MADE THE SWITCH:

Oh, how I wish I hadn’t switched to New Blogger! . . . I am now bursting with hate for Blogger. I hate hate hate New Blogger. After that last post, I tried to open the comments page and got an error message. I tried to open the blog in a different broswer and got a “Server Error.” Trying to open a “Create Post” window went nowhere for the longest time. Getting to the blog has been taking way too long ever since the switch. Perhaps you’ve noticed.

You know, for months, I wasn’t able to respond to the invitation to switch to New Blogger because it was not ready to deal with very large blogs like mine. (I have over 7,000 posts.) Well, I tend to think they still weren’t ready. But now I’ve switched, and I’m in this Blogger hell. And I have no way to contact anyone at Blogger support. They’ve scrubbed the site of any reference to an email address where you might reach an actual person. And it was never — as far as I know — possible to contact anyone at Blogger, AKA Google.

I think I’ll advise Helen to hold off on switching. And I’ll note that Google’s success depends on things working right, because if they don’t, there’s nobody to call, and they quickly transform from cute-but-big company to hated uncaring corporate monolith.

TPM MUCKRAKER REPORTS:

West Virginia congressman Alan Mollohan (D) has used $160,000 worth of services by a white collar criminal defense firm, according to new campaign filings.

Mollohan, who chairs the House panel which controls the Justice Department budget (including the FBI), has been under investigation by the FBI for a rather knotty mess of nonprofits, friends and real estate deals that appear to have made a lot of money for a lot of people.

According to documents filed by his campaign with the Federal Elections Commission, the law firm Kellogg Huber Hansen Todd Evan has collected $140,000 from his campaign. The campaign says that as of Dec. 31, 2006, it owed the firm another $20,000,

Mollohan has said that because of the investigation he would recuse himself from decisions concerning the FBI’s budget, but some believe that doesn’t resolve the conflict of interest.

(Via Don Surber).

BILL FRIST LAUNCHES YourIdeasAmerica.com.

YEAH: “If I had to vote today, I’d pick Giuliani too, but it’s much easier for me, because I support abortion rights and the other liberal causes that make conservatives worry about Giuliani.”

IT’S A QUAGMIRE:

The New York Times Co. posted a $648 million loss for the fourth quarter on Wednesday as it absorbed an $814.4 million charge to write down the value of its struggling New England properties, The Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. . . .

The company originally paid $1.1 billion for the Globe in 1993 and $296 million for the Worcester paper in 2000.

The Times reported a loss amounting to $4.50 a share for the October- December period. It earned $63.1 million, or 43 cents a share, a year ago.

Reader Matt Graham writes: “NYT in quagmire. Should immediately begin plans for withdrawal from newspaper business.”

Don Surber: “I notice the Wall Street Journal does not operate this way.”

The Times empire should be making as much money as the WSJ’s, and I think it’s bad management that has made the difference.

REFORM IN KNOX COUNTY:

On the new Knox County Commission is the son of an ex-commissioner, the father of a current commissioner, and the wife of another ex-commissioner.

Also, there’s a Sheriff’s Office employee and one of the booted commissioners is now the Knox County Clerk.

Boy, term limits really bring in new blood, don’t they?

Part of the problem is that not that many people want the jobs.

STEVE FORBES IS PUSHING the Iraq Oil Trust idea.

LOADS MORE LIBBY TRIAL BLOGGING at Tom Maguire’s place. “In a brutally devastating but gentlemanly low key way the defense destroyed a key prosecution witness.”

And lots more on developments at Duke at K.C. Johnson’s, plus a link to this oped by Johnson.

UPDATE: No, it wasn’t a misquote from Tom above — I cut-and-pasted accurately, but then he fixed the error. I’ve followed suit.

BACK BEFORE THE ELECTIONS, I wondered if the Republicans suffered from some sort of “bizarre death wish.” Hugh Hewitt thinks it’s getting worse.

And reader C.J. Burch writes:

The Repubs are on very dangerous ground here I think. Any Sox fan can tell you this. It is very easy to really, really hate people you once loved when you feel they have betrayed you. (Think Roger Clemens, Sox fans) The Republican base isn’t going to get over this, I don’t think…not ever. Of course the winners will be conservative Southern Democrats, and there are still some around. Folks like Jim Marshall here in Georgia will step into the vacume just fine. The Democrats took the South for granted and tossed it away. Looks like the Repubs are trying the same gambit. If they don’t think southern (Jacksonian) voters will find somehwere else to go they’ve lost their minds.

I realize that you go to war with the political class you have, but still. . . .

HOW NOT TO TALK about politics and religion.

THE NOT-SO-FINAL countdown.

THE PERIL OF A NEWSPAPER BLOG “…is that a reporter might say what he actually thinks before an editor catches up with him and makes him stop.”

UPDATE: More here from Blackfive and here from Marc Danziger. Danziger observes:

Look, Arkin’s a pretty good writer, and a veteran. But if you look at his opus in Google, you find him on the anti-military side of almost every issue that’s come along since the 1980′s.

And to appoint him lead blogger on military affairs for arguable the leading newspaper in the country certainly looks a lot like appointing ‘Focus On The Family’s’ James Dobson as the lead rap music critic.

I’m not saying that the major media are liberal, or biased against the military or anything. But this sure makes a good case for it.

Read the whole thing(s).

MORE: A related observation from The Mudville Gazette. And reader Ted Doty writes:

The problem is maybe less what Arkin wrote, than what his commenters wrote. After reading some of them, I feel like I should take a shower:

” I applaud the use of the word “mercenary” to describe the soldiers comprising our standing army. The rarity of its use in this context compelled me to comment.

“U.S. soldiers are by no means “volunteers,” any more than I am a volunteer plumber. When a person accepts compensation in the form of respect, glory, and not least of all monetary benefits (not to mention a host of other privileges for serving one’s country after service is completed) a transaction is made in which both sides receive some benefit. Fisherman in Alaska take on relatively larger risks in exchage [sic] for relatively larger reward. Why is the U.S. military of the 21st century so different in this regard?”

Jeez … is is 2004 all over again? Not that I question their patriotism or anything …

No. Though it’s no fairer to blame Arkin for his commenters, I stress, than any other blogger. But that doesn’t make the comments better. Most of them, however, take a decidedly different tone, more hostile to Arkin than to the troops.

AN INTERESTING LOOK AT the state of the economy.

XENI JARDIN continues her series on Guatemala.