PHIL BOWERMASTER HAS THOUGHTS ON the origins of the environmental movement.

FROM POPULAR MECHANICS, a video iPhone review.

MICHIKO KAKUTANI LIKES Andrew Keen’s Cult of the Amateur a lot more than I did.

Ironically, however, the same issue of The New York Times contains this article on the triumph of an Army of Davids kind of approach in space suit design, an idea that was originally proposed by blogger Rand Simberg. (And here’s another article on the same thing.) So critics of amateur efforts can get good reviews in the NYT, even while the amateurs are, you know, actually doing stuff. Seems about right . . . .

STRATEGYPAGE ON NIGERIA:

The mayhem in the Niger Delta is costing about $4.4 billion in damages and lost revenue each year. But the loss is just shrugged off as a cost of doing business. The corrupt leadership is nothing if not adaptable. The Nigerian people are still doing most of the suffering. The shut down oil production means there is less money to steal. The growing number of kidnappings means more jobs for bodyguards and security personnel. The tribe based gangs in the Niger Delta are evolving into businesses, based on intimidation, theft and corruption. The inability of anyone to get really organized means there is unlikely to be a unified and effective rebellion. The system just staggers, with individuals and small groups grabbing what they can.

Poor Nigeria.

MORE PRESSURE on the ABA’s accreditation role.

PETER WALLISON: What if we hadn’t invaded Iraq?

“DECAPIGATE:” More bogus reporting from Iraq.

HOW TO BE A 21ST CENTURY FUDDY-DUDDY.

And I’m blogging from the passenger seat of an SUV too — though mine is a hybrid.

GOING AFTER the Iranian cells in Baghdad.

Some background here.

JIHADI UNIVERSITY: Losing its accreditation?

SPACEDIVING:

Sixty miles up, you sit in a chair on the open deck of a small rocket, admiring the stars above, the Earth far, far below. The vacuum beyond your visor is cold, but it would boil your blood if your pressure suit failed. You give your parachute straps a reassuring pat. It’s utterly silent. Just you and your fragile body, hovering alone above the Earth. “Space Diver One, you are go,” crackles a voice in your ear, and you undo your harness and stand up. There’s nothing for it now: You paid a lot of money for this.

You breathe deeply and leap, somersaulting into the void. The mother planet is gorgeous from up here. You barely perceive that it’s rushing up toward you, and your body relaxes. You streak into the atmosphere at 2,500 miles an hour, faster than anyone’s ever gone without a vehicle. The sky lightens, the stars disappear behind the blue, and a violent buffeting begins. You deploy your drogue chute for stability; an uncontrolled spin in this thin air would rip you apart. The thick lower atmosphere slows you to 120 mph—terminal velocity. After a thrilling seven-minute plummet, you pull your main chute at 3,000 feet, hands shaking, and glide in for landing. A mile away, your rocket retro-thrusts its way gently to the ground.

Sounds cool. I’d like to be — well, not the first guy to do that. Maybe the fourth.

RICHARD POSNER says that criminal law can’t respond to terrorism:

Judge Posner said the US was “a law-saturated society where even non-lawyers tend to think ofproblems in terms of legal categories”.

“Criminal justice and war are the two responses we have to terrorism. Each comes with its own legal institutions and doctrines and regimes but the struggle against international terrorism doesn’t fit either very well.”

He said it was “quite misplaced” to suggest national security measures in force or contemplated in the US could endanger liberty and undermine the political system. This was because governments could no longer conceal what they did: “We have a very aggressive media and a huge and complex government where many people in the government are quite willing to talk to the press.”

I hope he’s wrong about the threat, but right about the ability of the public to police government overreaching. You can hear our podcast interview with him here.

IN THE MAIL: John Nye’s War, Wine, and Taxes: The Political Economy of Anglo-French Trade, 1689-1900. Makes me wonder if French wine and cheese are selling better in the United States since Sarkozy was elected.

HONDA IS BREAKING GROUND for the factory that will build its new Very Light Jet, in North Carolina.

JAPANESE WAR PROPAGANDA: Everything old is new again.

MORE EXCITING THAN THE O’REILLY FACTOR: The latest Corn & Miniter Show is up!

LONDON AND NEW YORK: A tale of two cities.

THIS SEEMS LIKE GOOD NEWS: “Sunni militias that once fought U.S. troops are now seeking to join them, frustrated by al Qaeda’s influence in parts of Baghdad, a U.S. commander said on Friday. . . . ‘They are tired of al Qaeda and the influence of al Qaeda in their tribes and in their neighborhoods and they want them cleaned out and they want to form an alliance in order to rid themselves of this blight.'” Let’s hope this meets with continued success.

A HANDS-ON REVIEW OF THE IPHONE, from Brendan Loy. Turns out that the virtual keyboard is something of an issue after all: “If you’re accustomed to sending short text messages and writing brief e-mails from your phone while not doing anything else that you need to look at, this is not a big problem. If you’re accustomed to composing and publishing a dozen 256-character blog posts on your phone during the course of a football game you’re attending, it’s a somewhat more serious concern.” But the big deal-killer for Brendan is that you can’t use it as a modem, the way you can use many phones, Treos, etc.

UPDATE: Tim Wu says the iPhone isn’t revolutionary:

Most obviously, the iPhone is locked, as is de rigueur in the wireless world. It will work only with one carrier, AT&T. Judged by the standards of a personal computer or electronics, that’s odd: Imagine buying a Dell that worked only with Comcast Internet access or a VCR that worked only with NBC. Despite the fact that the iPhone costs $500 or so, it cannot yet be brought over to T-Mobile or Verizon or Sprint. AT&T sees this as a feature, not a bug, as every new iPhone customer must commit to a two-year, $1,400 to $2,400 contract.

If Apple wanted to be “revolutionary,” it would sell an unlocked version of the iPhone that, like a computer, you could bring to the carrier of your choice. An even more radical device would be the “X Phone”—a phone on permanent roam that chose whatever network was providing the best service. Imagine, for example, using your iPhone to talk on Sprint because it had the best voice coverage in Alaska, while at the same time using Verizon’s 3G network for Internet access. Of course, getting that phone to market would be difficult, and Apple hasn’t tried.

Read the whole thing.

GRANTS FOR NEW MEDIA PROJECTS, available at the Searle Freedom Trust.