NOT GOOD FOR THE LEGAL PROFESSION’S REPUTATION:

A University of Arizona law school student and beauty queen has been indicted on charges that say she and three others held her former boyfriend captive for 10 hours while torturing and robbing him. Kumari Fulbright, a law clerk for U.S. District Court Judge Raner Collins, was indicted Dec. 18 on five felony charges – armed robbery, aggravated robbery, kidnapping and two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Jeez.

UPDATE: Further thoughts here.

POWER LINE ON “2007, a year that couldn’t seem to get any respect but was, on the whole, pretty good.” Sure could have been worse.

I’LL BET THE BAGHDAD ZOO DIRECTOR isn’t nearly as well paid as the San Francisco zoo director, either . . . .

SECRETS OF WEIGHT LOSS, REVEALED!

HAPPY NEW YEAR: “2008 arrived in a less-violent Baghdad, and residents said it was the first real party they had seen in years.”

JOE TOBACCO endorses Hillary.

Meanwhile, Ralph Nader endorses Edwards.

UPDATE: Tom Smith isn’t bullish on Hillary: “As much as I am sure I would not like the policies of the Democrats in the White House, mostly I just don’t want the spectacle of Hillary and Bill back in the White House. I’m still not over the Starr Report, which I wish I had never read, like one of those websites you are sorry to have stumbled upon. Call it right wing paranoia, but I thought the Clintons brought to public life a degree of ruthlessness that appalled many of even the hardened souls in DC, and I was in DC for about half of the Bill years. I would much prefer Obama or even Edwards. It would take either of them years to build the private army the Clintons have at their disposal.” This is the Insta-Wife’s take.

PEOPLE HAVE BEEN EMAILING ME for a couple of weeks with claims that Mike Huckabee didn’t lose all the weight he claims by dieting, but by bariatric surgery. I haven’t been persuaded. Now here’s a fairly convincing refutation. Plus, a denial.

TOM BARNETT’S top 10 foreign policy wishes.

ADVICE FOR WOMEN from Amy Alkon.

MICKEY KAUS: “Press pros on the ground (excitable Joe Klein,, Marc Cooper, the First Read crew) are convinced Huckabee’s press conference today–in which he announced he was pulling a negative campaign spot and then showed it to the press anyway–was so disastrous as to be Dean-screamish. Like Jonathan Martin, I’m not so sure.”

THE VERY DEFINITION OF MODEST GOOD NEWS: “Pre-owned home sales up 0.4%” But hey, it’s better than bad news.

SO I’VE HAD THE GPS for a while, and it’s worked pretty well. Once or twice it got confused about whether a left turn was permitted or something, but overall the mapping is quite impressive, and it’s never really steered me wrong. As for my earlier worries that it would cause me to lose my sense of direction, well, not so much. Keeping it on in “map mode,” in fact, makes me aware of things in a new way. On the other hand, I was visiting somebody’s house the other night in a neighborhood that’s so new it’s not on the maps yet. Ordinarily I would have memorized the route back out, and I didn’t. That may have been GPS-induced laziness, or it may just have been . . . laziness.

THOUGHTS ON DIVERSITY AND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, from James Taranto.

TOO CLEVER BY HALF?

Related item here: “That Huckabee still showed the spot to dozens of reporters jammed into a press conference will ensure the most skeptical, bordering on cynical, coverage on every national news broadcast tonight and in all the major national papers tomorrow. After it became clear that he was not going to air the ad on Iowa television, but would still preview it here, the press corps offered a collective laugh in plain recognition of what Huckabee was up to.”

UPDATE: Huckabee’s response.

PATTERICO POSTS A year-end review for the Los Angeles Times. It’s not pretty.

TIME FOR a “Surge” in Afghanistan?

JOHN FUND: “What’s the Matter With Iowa?”

REACTIONARIES fighting diversity. I guess they liked it better back when “those people” knew their place.

CALLS TO IMPEACH CHENEY: It’d almost be worth it just to see him preside over his own impeachment trial.

UPDATE: Slanted, or planted?

I’VE ALWAYS KNOWN THAT I HAVE A GREAT WIFE, but I’ve never seen it explained so pithily.

MICKEY KAUS on the Iowa Caucuses: “Letting the presidential nominee be picked by the Iowa caucusers is like letting your antiwar tactics be picked by the last people left at the end of a 4-hour SDS meeting in 1970.”

REVIEWING THE REVIEWERS: A roundup of Sunday’s book reviews in various papers.

SURPRISING NEWS FROM BRITAIN:

Playing with toy weapons helps the development of young boys, according to new Government advice to nurseries and playgroups.

Staff have been told they must resist their “natural instinct” to stop boys using pretend weapons such as guns or light sabres in games with other toddlers.

Fantasy play involving weapons and superheroes allows healthy and safe risk-taking and can also make learning more appealing, says the guidance.

It conflicts with years of “political correctness” in nurseries and playgroups which has led to the banning of toy guns, action hero games and children pretending to fire “guns” using their fingers or Lego bricks.

You have to listen to the science, right? But there are always people who will oppose science for religious reasons:

But teachers’ leaders insisted last night that guns “symbolise aggression” and said many nurseries and playgroups would ignore the change.

Don’t they care about the children? Apparently not:

Research by Penny Holland, academic leader for early childhood at London Metropolitan University, has also concluded that boys should be allowed to play gun games.

She found boys became dispirited and withdrawn when they are told such play-fighting is wrong.

Of course, to some educators, that’s not a bug, it’s a feature. (Via Dave Hardy).

UPDATE: Rand Simberg denounces this child-destroying war on science.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More thoughts from the Insta-Wife.

JINGLE BOMBS.

ILYA SOMIN ON A CLASH OF VALUES: The debate over radical life extension technologies.

I’ve had some related thoughts here. Plus some thoughts on life extension and retirement.

A MCCAIN VICTORY? Just remember when the turnaround started . . . .

CAN FRED THOMPSON turn it around?

DUCT TAPE, “SAFE ROOMS,” and Oak Ridge.

MR. CLEAN? A well-timed raise, a trip, and a rather lackadaisical approach to investigating Gov. Spitzer. (Via JWF).

TURKMENISTAN stops gas exports to Iran.

BAGHDAD ZOO is a draw again. “‘I feel safe here. I feel relaxed,’ said Hussein, 51, a taxi driver.” Sounds safer than the San Francisco Zoo.

NEW AIR-SAFETY RESTRICTIONS on traveling with lithium-ion batteries.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: “A multidisciplinary team of UCLA scientists were able to differentiate metastatic cancer cells from normal cells in patient samples using leading-edge nanotechnology that measures the softness of the cells.”

MAJOR JOHN TAMMES: The training I felt uncomfortable about – and shouldn’t have. “I did take advantage of what the Army has taught me. Oddly enough, it was at home and not on a battlefield.”

THEY TOLD ME IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, campus student groups would be banned because of their unacceptable views on premarital sex. And they were right!

NEW FATALITY NUMBERS FROM IRAQ: Some people will be unhappy. But they’ll be the people who should be unhappy.