June 16, 2007

BOB BECKEL: "There’s something about Harry Reid and the left of bloggers that has gotten, there’s a marriage gone on there. I mean, frankly I think they got much too much influence over him."

Nonsense. Just look at Reid's approval ratings.

HOW FITTING: "Looters raid Arafat's home, steal his Nobel Peace Prize." This is what Arafat -- and the Oslo Accords -- wrought.

A GAZA ROUNDUP from Noah Pollak.

SAM DINKIN: "I just got a call purporting to be from the American Civil Liberties Union. Before they got going, they said, 'This call may be monitored for quality assurance.''

A LOOK AT CALIFORNIA: "California is a trendsetter state. Much like the weather, every Californian fad eventually makes its way over the Sierras and diffuses into the intermountain West. That’s wonderful, and it’s frightening, because there are some pretty disturbing things going on in the Golden State right now."

It seems like there's a lot of competition to emulate Singapore. (Via Perry de Havilland).

SOME IMPORTANT THOUGHTS ON PIZZA:

You can get by with ordinary cheese; you can give people that pillow-soft puffed-up crust some adore. But without good sauce in sufficient quantities, it’s not pizza. Just so we’re clear.

I agree. Good crust is important, and so is cheese, but the sauce is the thing. And I particularly dislike the trend, in some quarters, of largely omitting the sauce in favor of a quarter-pound of cheese per slice. If I wanted cheese toast, I'd order cheese toast.

UPDATE: Deep fried pizza?

PALESTINIANS FLEE TO ISRAEL: Because, you know, it's civilization.

SO AT LEAST THERE'S BEEN ONE CONVICTION IN THIS AFFAIR: Nifong found guilty.

BACK WHEN WE INTERVIEWED RNC CHAIR KEN MEHLMAN LAST YEAR, Helen's first question to Mehlman was something along the lines of Why is President Bush acting like a Democrat?

The GOP lost, Mehlman has moved on, but the Bush Administration is still acting like Democrats -- even to the point of complaining about the "Right-Wing Blathersphere."

Do they want whining from Michael Chertoff and Trent Lott to form the public image of the Bush Administration and the Republican Party?

Apparently they do. Good luck with that, guys. The political press can run with stories about bloggers being in full revolt over immigration, but it's not really a case of bloggers vs. the Administration. Rather, it's a case -- like Harriet Miers, Dubai Ports, PorkBusters, etc. -- of the Bush Administration ignoring the clear warnings available in the blogosphere. And once again, it's not just bloggers who think the Administration is crazy. So far, every time they've done that they've had their head handed to them. That'll happen this time, too, and if they should happen to "win" and pass their bill, the consequences for the GOP will be even worse. "Bizarre Republican Death Wish?" Indeed.

Frankly, that's okay with me. I've long been unhappy with both Democrats and Republicans. The GOP has been better on national security, though that advantage is fading with time, but overall both parties have been lame and more likely to unite in opposition to citizens' rights and liberties than to compete in protecting them. I've often at least sort-of hoped for a third party that would combine the GOP economic-libertarian strands with the Dems' social-libertarian strands. I don't know if the GOP's self-destruction makes that more likely, but it seems like it might. At any rate, if people really want to commit suicide it's hard to stop them, and that seems to be the GOP's main goal at the moment.

Meanwhile, some further thoughts on what blogs are good for.

UPDATE: Bill Quick: "Why, you’d think our would-be rulers live in a bubble or something. Still, I don’t think they really misjudge outside-the-Beltway sentiment. They just ignore it - or try to."

ANOTHER UPDATE: A view from the cartoonosphere:

THE UNITED STATES: LAGGING IN PHYSICS. What's worse, this isn't just about falling behind in the race for the biggest, baddest accelerators, a race that I'm not convinced is as important as portrayed. This is about far more serious systemic problems. Excerpt:

The net result is that the academic community is now devoting far more of its time to writing grants, a shift that has come at the expense of directing and publishing research. In the past, academics have had an escape route from the pressures to retain funding: the "blue sky" research labs run by major companies, such as AT&T's Bell Labs. But the report refers to these institutions as "once great," since recent years have seen them closed, sold off piecemeal, or refocused on product development.

Combined, these changes have caused US research output to shrink in comparison to the rest of the world. Based on publications in Physical Reviews B and E, the US contribution to papers has remained flat over the last decade, while papers originating from other countries have nearly doubled. The report predicts that this reduced output will ultimately exact a price on the American economy.

It's not all bad, of course, that other countries are producing more. But this is a real problem, not merely a demand for more cash.

A BLOG ON HIGH POWER ROCKETRY, with lots of interesting videos.

GAIA 1, PEARL JAM ZERO.

SO IF YOU BASH ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER'S ADVICE ON LEARNING ENGLISH, aren't you engaging in immigrant-bashing yourself?

Most amusing line:

A Hispanic advocacy group said Schwarzenegger's comments show his "ignorance on immigration issues."

Because what would Arnold know about people who come from a different land, raised in another language, who want to make a life for themselves in America?

ABUSIVE LAB TEST: A high-speed blender triathlon, with three blenders being tested as they blend a variety of items.

They didn't, however, test my personal favorite, which I find is capable of producing delicious smoothies from all sorts of ingredients.

SUCCESSFULLY TESTING a Mach 10 Scramjet: This is huge if it turns out as advertised, because it gives you rocket-like launch performance, but without having to carry along oxidizer like rockets do, since you can get it from the air.

UPDATE: Rand Simberg thinks I'm making too much of this story.

BRIAN LAMB responds to the critics.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: More developments:

Toward 2 a.m., Chairman Obey challenged Mr. Flake: "The gentleman has offered a lot of motions in the past two years to strike earmarks. Could I ask him how many of them have been successful?"

"Not one," Flake responded. "I came to the floor 39 times and was beaten like a rented mule every time."

But the level of public interest and scrutiny over earmarks has increased since those votes, he said, in an interview. Obey "misjudged the way this is viewed outside the Beltway." . . .

On Monday, Obey announced a revision of committee policy on earmarks: Instead of including member projects, identified by name in spending bills, earmarks would be fully disclosed before the August recess – after all House votes on spending bills, but before the final appropriations are worked out in a conference with the Senate. Lawmakers objecting to any earmark could send a letter to the committee challenging the project.

The move set off protests from editorial boards to accountability websites in the blogosphere. Within hours of the Obey announcement, more than 770 people volunteered to help Congress vet earmarks this cycle on the porkbusters.org website.

"The question is whether Congress is going to live up to the reforms they promised or create conditions which we know corrupt things: earmarks decided behind closed doors and an opaque process," says Bill Allison, of the Sunlight Foundation. "There's no reason not to make the requests public now."

By the terms of the new deal announced Thursday morning, earmark disclosure rules will not apply to the two spending bills currently on the House floor, Homeland Security and Military Quality of Life. But all 10 remaining FY 2008 spending bills will be subject to the new rule.

Republicans say that they will continue to challenge spending levels in pending appropriations bills – and sustain any presidential veto of spending bills that exceed budget limits – but will call off obstructionist tactics over earmarks. In addition, House Republican leader John Boehner says he will try to force a House vote on a reform that allows members to challenge earmarks in authorizing and tax bills, as well as spending bills.

"Democratic leaders finally surrendered to our demands, because supporting secret earmarks in appropriations bills is indefensible and the American people won't stand for it," said Mr. Boehner, in a statement.

Yeah, I've said it before, but if the Republicans had been willing to take this kind of stand against pork last year, instead of listening to Trent Lott, they might still be in the majority.

OH. THAT'S what he meant? Huh.

UPDATE: Well, he wants to be noticed.

Meanwhile, Ace responds to feigned outrage from the Left, which I guess wants a monopoly on anti-gay slurs or something. "It doesn't particuarly bother me, but I do seem to notice that, when lefties decide to insult a political opponent, the 'fag' slur is always on the list of go-to put-downs. . . . Deal with it, get hip to the idea that there's one rule for all, not one rule for you and another for everyone else, and finally, please, do try to make some progress towards getting the fuck over yourselves."

It is kind of funny. First Greenwald calling me gay, now Firedoglake calling Lindsey Graham gay. Meanwhile, constant claims that the rightosphere is "homophobic." Hypocrisy, thy name is netroots.

June 15, 2007

THE TRENT LOTT / MOVEON CONNECTION: It all makes sense, now. . . .

RENAME EARMARKS WITH SOMETHING MORE, UM, EUPHONIOUS: Ed Morrissey is running a poll on different choices.

NIFONG RESIGNS:

Durham County district attorney Michael B. Nifong said today he plans to resign his job, after admitting that he had “crossed the line” of ethical standards in some of the public statements he made about the Duke University lacrosse players he charged with rape.

Better late than never.

UPDATE: Brendan Loy asks, What about the "Group of 88" Duke faculty who criticized the (innocent) lacrosse players?

CAN RORY STEWART fix Afghanistan?

SPITZER'S GIVEAWAY.

ADJUSTING TO CLIMATE CHANGE: "Many Arctic plant species have readily adjusted to big climate changes, repeatedly recolonizing the rugged islands of the remote Svalbard archipelago off Norway’s coast through 20,000 years of warm and cool spells since the frigid peak of the last ice age, researchers report in today’s issue of the journal Science. Their finding implies that, in the Arctic at least, plants may be able to shift long distances to follow the climate conditions for which they are best adapted as those conditions move under the influence of human-caused global warming, the researchers and some independent experts said."

Human-caused global warming goes back 20,000 years? Who knew?

BETTER THAN HARDBALL AND SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY PUT TOGETHER! The latest Corn & Miniter Show is up!

JOE LIEBERMAN REPORTS from a trip to Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. Unlike Harry Reid, Lieberman seems to think pretty highly of General Petraeus.

A ROUNDUP OF THE WORST JOBS IN SCIENCE: Starting with "whale feces researcher" and going downhill from there.

MARK STEYN ON TRENT LOTT: "I have no serious expectations of Senators these days, but I would like them at the very least to try and sound a little less like the plump complacent emirs of the one-party-state of Incumbistan. Trent Lott fails even that test." Indeed.

MORE ON HARRY REID, THE POLITICO, AND THE NETROOTS:

Another interesting undercurrent to this is the contempt of the left-wing bloggers for the Politico, and the Drudge Report, which often links to the site. The story was "based on unsubstantiated, third-party recollection," says Geiger, under the headline "The Politico Fails Journalism 101." "Politico, the online soul-mate to the Drudge Report, has gotten into the habit of creating news stories through innuendo, omission, outright error, and now today, out of thin air," was the line from Kos blogger BarbinMD (is that a professional opinion, doctor?). And the grand wizard of Politico haters once complained that Drudge and the Politico are "poisonously joined at the hip."

Well, for all that griping, it seems the Politico nailed this story, and Drudge just did what he always does--amplify it. Dr. Barbin still contends this is a non-story--though, apparently factually accurate despite protestations to the contrary--because it was just "a throw away line...that Harry Reid said to the unable-to-be-reconfirmed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff's face." And Geiger puts off the outrageous statement Reid claims to have made to the senator's "tendency to speak like the straight-talking, former boxer that he is." If it's all true, then Reid's a brave man, but a jerk nonetheless. The other possibility, of course, is that he's full of it and never said any such thing to Pace--in which case, he's still a jerk, but not so stupid as to question the integrity of this nation's highest ranking officer to his face.

The lefty bloggers, for their part, have shown themselves to be totally inept. They failed to report the comments, then they denied Reid ever made them while making their own unsubstantiated allegations, and now they defend the comments as irrelevant--and without even the slightest doubt as to their validity. Which is worse?

Does it matter? And heck, the White House press corps wasn't much better.

Anyway, some people are savoring the madness. And Bill Ardolino has more on the merits of Reid's statements -- or rather, the lack thereof. Dave Price, too.

THOMAS LIFSON: "The business model he established for the New York Times Company continues to collapse under the feet of Pinch Sulzberger. The very latest revenue figures of the company released just minutes ago show that advertising revenue and gross revenue are declining at a rate that cannot be matched by growth in revenues from the expensive internet properties purchased by Sulzberger."

DISSING THE "PAJAMA PEOPLE" on Studio 60.

As usual, the pajama people have gotten the last laugh.

POPULAR MECHANICS ROUNDS UP last-minute gadgets and tools for Father's Day. I kind of like the Stanley FuBar, and I admire whoever named it, but I wonder if it would really make a good gift. And who would give it. My suspicion is that these roundups are as much about presents for men to buy for themselves as for actual Father's Day purposes.

BUREAUCRATIC OPPOSITION TO SPACE TOURISM in the European Union? Not hard to believe. It's new! It's innovative! It's an American idea! It must be stopped!

CARMAKERS AREN'T GETTING THEIR MONEY'S WORTH from the politicians they're supporting.

IS POLYGAMY LAW IN A pre-Lawrence state of non-enforcement?

OH, YEAH: France!

BILL ROGGIO IS NOW BLOGGING ON IRAQ for The Examiner.

COMPARING GAZA TO THE SOPRANOS is, I think, an injustice to Mafiosi everywhere. Still, I take the point.

DOWNSIDE OF MISQUOTING BLOGGERS: They correct you.

Upside: They link to you.

Downside: They point out that, apparently, they're your only reader.

TRENT LOTT LASHES OUT AT TALK RADIO: Mickey Kaus notes the irony. Lott's a pretty good indicator of what's wrong with the GOP at any given moment.

UPDATE: No, really. A year ago, Trent Lott was saying he was "damn tired" of PorkBusters, and now the GOP is all about fighting the pork. Difference? They lost an election by listening to him. Now what will they be saying after the next election? Because if they listen to Lott, a textbook example of what's wrong with the GOP on Capitol Hill, they'll lose that one, too.

JOHN TAMMES POSTS HIS REGULAR ROUNDUP OF news from Afghanistan. As always, it's full of stuff you probably didn't see elsewhere.

LOTS OF NIFONG ACTION YESTERDAY: I didn't have time to follow it, but K.C. Johnson did.

IMMIGRATION BILL UPDATE: It's baaack!

BOYS TO MEN: Tony Woodlief has thoughts on Father's Day, in the Wall Street Journal. And he's got a new book out, too.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: John Boehner is claiming victory:

House Republicans banded together this week to force Democrats to restore GOP earmark reforms that brought real transparency and accountability to the budget process.

Faced with a united Republican Conference, the Democratic leadership backed down on their plan to hide earmarks in a series of multi-billion dollar slush funds and, effective immediately, agreed to allow Republicans to challenge wasteful spending in appropriations bills on the House floor.

As part of the deal completed after extensive negotiations that ended late today, Republicans agreed to allow two appropriations bills (Homeland Security and Military Quality of Life) – bills that include few or no earmarks – to move forward immediately. All 10 remaining appropriations bills will come to the floor later with their earmarks fully disclosed and subject to challenge by any lawmaker – a key element of the 2006 GOP reforms.

The issue of transparency and accountability in government spending has been at the forefront of congressional action all year.

If only the Republicans had been this anti-pork last year. But then, I'll bet they're wishing that now, too. Still, better late than never.

June 14, 2007

HAPPY FLAG DAY!

UPDATE: An observance.

HOME AGAIN, H0ME AGAIN: So I drove to Nashville for another meeting of the Gubernatorial Succession committee. It went well, and Ned Ray McWherter -- who wasn't able to make the first meeting -- was there. He's looking pretty spry, and offered some interesting insights. He's an old-fashioned politician in the best sense -- I was an intern for the State Senate when he was Speaker of the House, and yet he learned my name and remembered me when I ran into him years later. I can only imagine the kind of mental rolodex that takes. I certainly don't have that kind of mental rolodex.

No pictures of the Capitol this time, as I was in too much of a (pointless, as it turned out) hurry to start home. But here's one of the Legislative Plaza and War Memorial.

POLITICO 1, LEFTY BLOGOSPHERE ZERO:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid confirmed Thursday that he told liberal bloggers last week that he thinks outgoing Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace is "incompetent."

Reid acknowledged similarly disparaging Army Gen. David Petraeus, head of Multinational Forces in Iraq.

But Reid, whose comments to bloggers first appeared in The Politico, also told reporters: "I think we should just drop it."

I'll bet he does.

UPDATE: Yes, this certainly calls into question statements like these:

We asked Joan McCarter, who blogs at DailyKos under the name McJoan and wrote about being on the call here, if she recalled Reid calling Pace "incompetent."

"I don't remember him saying anything like that," she answered. "I can't swear he didn't say it. But I have no memory that he actually did. It's not in my notes." . . .

"I don't even recall Pace's name specifically being mentioned," adds Barbara Morrill, who blogs at Kos under the name BarbinMD and says she was on the call. "If it was, he did not say that he was incompetent."

Asked if he'd criticized Petraeus, Morrill said: "Not that I recall. I checked my notes," and there was nothing like this. . . .

Finally, here's what MyDD's Jonathan Singer, who wrote about the call here, told us: "I don't remember him calling Pace incompetent." He added that while he couldn't promise that he hadn't done it, "I just don't recall those statements."

Most likely, those sorts of statements just don't make much of an impression with the netroots. Which is ironic, since Reid probably made them for their benefit.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Stan Smith mocks them for their Scooter Libby stance: "And these folks can't
even remember what someone said mere DAYS ago...."

Call Patrick Fitzgerald!

MORE: J.D. Johannes, fresh back from Iraq, has more thoughts on Reid's remarks. "Mr. Reid, these men and women are not toys. When you treat them as pieces in your electoral games you treat them with contempt."

And reader C.J. Burch emails: "You're more charitable than I am. I would say that the lefty blogosphere is out right lying...again." Well, I'd be interested in seeing the traffic from the new, more secure version of the Townhouse list. But I think it's really just that antimilitary slurs are so common in that crowd that they don't make enough of an impression to be memorable.

GETTING IT BACKWARDS, AS USUAL: I don't pay much attention, generally, but I'm stuck in a car with nothing but Technorati for company, and noticed that in one of his typically verbose efforts, Glenn Greenwald gets around, eventually, to making two points, One is that I'm a geek, whose interest in Western culture's retreat from traditional ideas of masculinity is thus silly:

Glenn Reynolds -- who, by his own daily admission, devotes his life to attending convention center conferences on space and playing around with new, cool gadgets in the fun room in his house, like a sheltered adolescent in his secret treehouse club -- to fret: "Are we turning into a nation of wimps?"

But, see, that's the point. I'm a geek. If I notice it, it's probably real. It would be like Greenwald complaining that the country was going overboard in hatred of Bush.

He also accuses me of favoring a "more rubble, less trouble" approach to foreign policy. He offers no link because it's such a stretch that even Greenwald's readers might notice. Here's what I actually said, once, after a lengthy discussion of the situation with Iraq:

On the other hand, it's also true that if democracy can't work in Iraq, then we should probably adopt a "more rubble, less trouble" approach to other countries in the region that threaten us. If a comparatively wealthy and secular Arab country can't make it as a democratic republic, then what hope is there for places that are less wealthy, or less secular?

I've made clear, in that post and elsewhere, that I think democracy can work in Iraq -- this comment was aimed at advocates (like Greenwald) of giving up. Though Greenwald has shown trouble understanding conditional statements in the past, I'll note that his failure to link probably indicates that this is, even for him, a stretch in terms of misrepresenting my positions.

Greenwald also shows his instinct for the capillary here, as the real weak point in that post is the suggestion that Rumsfeld wasn't likely to go. Well, if Bush had known what he was doing, he would have let him go before the election or not at all. But there's that damn conditional again . . . .

UPDATE: Greenwald's acolytes are mocking this picture as insufficiently manly. But hey, who but a man secure in his masculinity would pose in that hat?

MORE: And he gets more attention than he deserves, here: But then, that's usually his goal, and any attention fills that bill. But there's this: "Let's translate that last paragraph from Glennwaldese to plain English: No, you guys are wimps. . . . Do women not exist in Glenn G's world?"

CALL THE BLOG ETHICS COMMITTEE!

WHAT I'M SEEING AT THE MOMENT: Alas, I've been seeing it for a while.

UPDATE: Stuck for an hour, waiting for this. But it had the whole road blocked until they dragged it to the side.

REPORTERS: Don't trust news reports!

At least not when they don't make the proper political point. Meanwhile, some liberal bloggers are disputing the Reid story, The Politico is standing by it, and as far as I can tell Harry Reid hasn't commented -- but I'm on the road and may have missed something. Ed Morrissey has a roundup on the story.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Claiming victory on earmarks:

House Republican leaders Thursday announced an agreement to end the standoff over member-requested spending projects that temporarily stalled floor action, allowing the annual appropriations bills to move forward.

But Democrats were not so sure. "The deal is not final, and negotiations are ongoing," said Stacey Farnen Bernards, a spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.).

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) laid out a compromise at a morning news conference, boasting: "House Republicans worked together to demand an end to secret slush funds for earmarks. … We've won this round."

Democrats, in the tenuous accord, agreed to include a list of earmarks in the 10 spending bills the House has yet to address. In addition, they’ll give lawmakers the opportunity to strike specific projects from the final version of each appropriations bill after both chambers have passed their respective versions.

Not to beat a dead horse, but if Republicans had been this diligent in opposing earmarks a year ago, they'd probably still be in the majority. But hey, better late than never.

A NEW IRON TRIANGLE?

THOUGHTS ON flicking and spitting.

THOUGHTS ON GAZA AND IRAQ.

MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT:

Kieran King's views on marijuana have led to his suspension from Wawota Parkland School.

King said he was threatened with police action by Principal Susan Wilson previously after making the case that marijuana was less harmful than alcohol.

Petty dictators.

A REGGIE WALTON / SARAH SILVERMAN CONNECTION? Only Hitchens could make that work.

BILL FRIST responds to Harry Reid.

MICHELLE BERNARD:

Like most of the American public, I have stood at the pump at my local filling station and cursed the cost of gasoline. Yet, after filling my tank I inevitably drive to Starbucks to stand in line with other women seeking a reprieve from morning mommy detail, handing over $4.24 without batting an eye as I order my beloved venti, soy chai latte.

The other morning I had, as Oprah might say, an "aha" moment. After paying for my cup of tea, I thought "What's wrong with this picture? Why am I complaining about the price of gasoline while forking out what is arguably a lot of money for a cup of hot water and spices?"

Mothers and fathers beware - if certain members of Congress have their way, you will not be standing in line at Starbucks any more because you'll be too busy waiting in mile-long lines to get gasoline.

Maybe the solution is for Starbucks to go into the gasoline business, so that people will be happy to pay outrageous prices.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: TOM COBURN TAKES ON THE EARMARXISTS:

Six months ago, the Democratic Party regained its majority in an election that was not just about Iraq. The new House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said the American people "called for greater integrity in Washington, and Democrats pledge to make this the most honest, ethical and open Congress in history."

The history of the intervening months has only confirmed that promises in Washington have a very short shelf life. Any promise not fulfilled within 60 days after an election is apparently considered expired, to be replaced with new promises. I saw this behavior in my own party with regard to the reform of pork-barrel spending -- aka "earmarks" -- and no Republican fought more forcefully against the forked-tongue syndrome than I did. . . .

If earmark reform in the House is the story of "three steps forward, six steps back," as Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) tartly observed, the situation in the Senate resembles sidesteps. When we considered ethics and earmark reform in January, Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S. C.) ingeniously forced our chamber to vote on a strong earmark-reform package -- written by none other than House Speaker Pelosi herself. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid initially blocked the "DeMint/Pelosi" amendment, but after it was "modified" in a face-saving exercise it passed largely intact.

The DeMint/Pelosi language would disclose backdoor earmarks, often called report language earmarks, that are tucked away in non-binding, staff-written appropriations committee reports. Ninety-five percent of all earmarks are written as "coercive suggestions" to agencies in these explanatory reports that accompany bills. DeMint/Pelosi would make public the sponsors of earmarks, requiring members to file a public disclosure statement stating that neither they nor their spouse will benefit financially from a pork project. Finally, it would give members new procedural tools to block bills that violate these rules.

However, the underlying legislation, S.1, a central Democratic campaign promise, has gone nowhere since it passed five months ago. House and Senate conferees have not even begun meeting to iron out a final bill. Each day, it looks more like another expired promise.

Sen. Reid and top Senate Democrats have had two other opportunities to enact Ms. Pelosi's earmark reform language. They blocked both attempts, arguing that ethics reform must be done comprehensively, not in a piecemeal fashion -- conveniently making the perfect the enemy of the good and doable. Some members of Congress seem to be hoping the public will lose interest in earmark reform. That isn't likely. Voters and taxpayers continue to be enraged -- Congress's approval rating is an abysmal 27%, in part because reform hasn't happened. Presidential politics will keep the issue front and center, and the army of bloggers who have long led on this issue are ratcheting up their criticism of the status quo.

And we'll be ratcheting some more! Meanwhile, here's video of the Wall Street Journal's Brendan Miniter on how the Democratic Congress is hiding the pork in ways that their GOP predecessors never dreamed of.

LEGACIES OF the Falkland Islands war.

J.D. JOHANNES LOOKS AT BODY COUNTS AND VICTORY. I think the subject is more useful in assessing media bias than military progress.

Plus, he answers reader questions.

MORE ON HARRY REID AND INCOMPETENCE:

Democrats keep challenging the weakest administration since Jimmy Carter, and incredibly, prove to be even weaker. . . . It took Republicans 12 years to dissolve. Democrats have done it in less than six months.

I congratulate them on their efficiency.

It's a race to see who can commit suicide faster. As I've said before, Ana Marie Cox calls Washington "the Special Olympics of sex," but it's beginning to look like the Special Olympics of politics, too. Can't anyone play this game?

A NEW CIVIL RIGHTS BILL in Ohio.

A EUROPEAN ROCKET PLANE aimed at the space tourism market:

Europe's biggest aerospace company, EADS, has concluded that carrying wealthy tourists to 100 kilometers in altitude for several minutes of weightlessness could be a multibillion-dollar industry in 20 years and is seeking co-investors to build a rocket plane it already has designed. . . .

Taking off from an as-yet undetermined spaceport using two conventional jet engines, the plane would climb to 12 kilometers in altitude before its rocket engine ignites, powering the vehicle through the atmosphere and into a coast phase whose 100-kilometer apogee would provide passengers with one and one-half minutes of near-zero-gravity experience.

It's very nice to see how this field is, er, taking off. I remember a seeing presentation by Wolfgang Demisch on the likely impact of space tourism as a technology and economic driver over ten years ago, and being very impressed with its potential. Looks like that potential is becoming actual.

IF THE ISRAELIS HAD DONE THIS KIND OF THING IN GAZA, there would have been a worldwide outcry. There might also have been more of a chance for peace. Certainly it would have been hard for things to have worked out worse. But since it's Hamas killing people, nobody will really care -- unless, ironically, they can find a way to blame the Israelis. Or Bush!

UPDATE: Boy, that didn't take long!

LOCAL LETTUCE="liberty cabbage."

HONDA REPLACES THE ACCORD HYBRID with an efficient, clean-burning diesel: "If you find this sad, you’ve never driven an Accord hybrid. The regenerative braking system felt stiff and unresponsive, the car shook noticeably when the gasoline engine turned on and off, and it looked just like a boring ol’ Accord."

RED-LIGHT CAMERA justice.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: More from The Examiner:

It may not be possible for Democratic leaders in Congress to look even more ridiculous on earmarks reform than they do now but they’re doing their best. Take House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s suggestion Tuesday that House members “leave this room today forgetting earmarks.” Her appeal came as House members on both sides of the aisle bashed each other over provisions of the $36 billion homeland security appropriations bill. At issue were provisions to spend tax dollars on such terrorism-fighting essentials as puppet shows and designer hand bags. Pelosi suggested forgetting earmarks would help restore a spirit of bipartisan cooperation in the House.

Forgetting earmarks now won’t change the basic characteristics that make them such a ripe symbol of the culture of corruption that still pervades Congress and underscores its inability to control federal spending. The pork-barrel crowd loves earmarks for several reasons. Most important is the anonymity for the member sponsoring an earmark. Then, recipients don’t have to go through a competitive bidding process once their earmark is approved. Finally, earmarks are handy tools for rewarding campaign donors, lobbyists, special interests, loyal staff aides and even family members. Democrats promised to reform Republican abuses of earmarks but observers across the political spectrum have concluded in recent weeks that nothing has changed since the November 2006 election.

My expectations for the Democrats were modest enough -- I just figured they wouldn't be any worse than the Republicans -- but they've been disappointed nonetheless. And don't get me started on the business with the jets.

RICHARD RAHN: "The rise of anti-Americanism in Europe is a danger to both American and European pocketbooks, and our collective liberty."

FROM NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, a list of the 100 greatest adventure books of all time. Nonfiction, that is. I remember reading Annapurna when I was a kid, and I was glad to see Michael Collins' Carrying the Fire on the list, too -- it's an absolute gem, and hasn't gotten the attention it deserves.

LOOK WHO'S TALKING: Harry Reid calls Generals Pace and Petraeus "incompetent."

Reader Brett Conner, who sent word of this, writes: "As a veteran who has served under General Pace, I can
attest to not only his competence but also his compassion for his Marines and as a member of the Joint Chiefs, all servicemembers. Senator Reid has crossed a sacred line between the military and our civilian leaders. One of the reasons I left the military was being stabbed in the back by our fellow countrymen. It happened to my father in Vietnam, and I didn't want to continue living through the same experience."

I'm afraid a lot of people will view Harry Reid's statement that way. Of course, some folks like the way the Vietnam War turned out.

UPDATE: Waiting for Wesley Clark to slam Harry Reid as a "chickenhawk," as he did with Joe Lieberman. Wouldn't that be a "chickendove?" But then, Reid voted for the war, didn't he? So maybe it's more a case of chicken . . . well, never mind.

MARK STEYN TALKS DOOMSDAY WITH ROGER SIMON.

LET THE CHILDREN PLAY, or they will never learn:

Children are so cocooned by their parents that they rarely venture far from home and have little concept of space, volume and how the world actually works, David Willetts, the shadow education secretary, said yesterday.

The area in which children were allowed to range freely by their parents was a ninth of what it was a generation ago, he said. He also referred to "most worrying" research which showed children could not grasp basic maths. . . .

Mr Willetts's comments come amid increasing concern that children's experiences are being stifled by over-anxious parents obsessed with "stranger danger", and an increasingly litigious society which means schools and clubs are nervous about taking children on activity holidays and adventure trips.

As a consequence, children who sit in front of their computer or television, grow up with concentration problems as a result, and suffer a "nature deficit disorder", Mr Willetts said.

I can't say I find this surprising. Plus, there's this:

Britain's safety charity suggested yesterday it would be better for the occasional child to fall out of a tree and break their wrist than develop repetitive strain injury from playing computer games.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents said parents were too risk-averse, particularly after the abduction of Madeleine McCann in Portugal, and youngsters should be allowed to bruise and cut themselves.

As the playground movement of 100 years ago said, "better a broken arm than a broken spirit." We talked about that in our podcast interview with Conn Iggulden, author of The Dangerous Book for Boys.

IS KILLING YOUR HUSBAND LESS SERIOUS than serving kids beer?

OBVIOUSLY, IT'S SWEEPS WEEK IN THE BLOGOSPHERE:

I really enjoy reading the indominable Oliver Willis. And of course he's right about this. But let's review the titles of some his recent posts:

* "Kim Kardashian and the Brazilian Butt-Lift"
* "Jessica Alba Makes The Case For Why She And Not Lindsay Lohan Should Have Been #1 on Maxim's Hot 100"
* "Obama and the Celebrity Hottie Vote"
* ... etc.

Why, it's almost as if Oliver Willis uses images of attractive Hollywood twentysomething women to improve his ratings!

Hey, I should try that!

June 13, 2007

A LOOK AT gay life in Afghanistan, which is reportedly improving.

LOADS OF NIFONG NEWS at K.C. Johnson's place.

And another case of false charges closer to home: "A Campbell County man spent 63 days behind bars falsely accused of murdering his two-year-old daughter. . . . The autopsy found no evidence of any prescription drugs in Tabitha's system. Instead, the cause of death was a bronchial asthma attack. 'All they had to do was follow their own advice and wait for the autopsy,' says Coltharp's attorney, Greg Isaacs. He is representing Coltharp in a possible lawsuit."

ADAM GROVES interviews Lamar Alexander.

LOOKS AT THE SITUATION IN IRAQ, from StrategyPage and Victor Davis Hanson.

Also from Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

And from some Marines in Iraq.

SEPARATED AT BIRTH? Wow, this is really amazing.

TOM LANTOS DENOUNCES GERHARD SCHROEDER AND JACQUES CHIRAC.

"I am so glad that the era of Jacques Chirac and Chancellor Schroeder in Germany is now gone," Lantos said to applause.

He said when the United States asked Schroeder to support its decision to go to war in Iraq "he told us where to go."

"I referred to him as a political prostitute, now that he's taking big checks from (Russian President Vladimir) Putin. But the sex workers in my district objected, so I will no longer use that phrase," Lantos said.

After leaving office in 2005 Schroeder became chairman of the North Europe Gas Pipeline, which is 51 percent owned by the Russian state natural gas company Gazprom.

Ouch. And heh.

IRAN MOVES TO execute porn stars.

MORE ON PELOSI AND THE JETS: "Pentagon officials are bracing for a fight with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) over her desire to allow lawmakers’ adult children to tag along on taxpayer-funded travel for free. Pelosi wants them to be able to fill the role of lawmakers’ spouses when the latter are unable to make a trip because of health issues or work commitments."

Can't these people fly commercial? Plus this:

Pentagon aides did not respond to requests for comment.

But taxpayer watchdog groups and ethics advocates said they were surprised Pelosi would seek more perks for members.

“One of the things she was praised for when she came in was her sweeping reforms on gifts and travel,” said Craig Holman of Public Citizen. “It is very disheartening if she is, in fact, backsliding on this.”

Backsliding seems to be the big theme of this Congress.

UPDATE: Reader Glenn Thomson writes:

Shouldn't most of the 'adult children' of lawmakers have real jobs? I can't imagine most of the people I've worked with being able to drop what they're doing and fly somwhere to help Mom/Dad with business.

"Real jobs." Such naivete is refreshing.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Looks like a significant victory over pork, judging by this from Rep. Jeff Flake:

Republican Congressman Jeff Flake, who represents Arizona’s Sixth District, today was pleased that House Democratic Leadership has ceded to Republican complaints regarding House Appropriations Chairman David Obey’s plan to add earmarks to spending bills only after the House has passed the bills.

The agreement, as understood, calls for Democrats to move ahead this week on two spending bills not traditionally vehicles for egregious earmarks, homeland security appropriations and military construction appropriations, under earmark reform rules passed last Congress. This will allow for a point of order on earmarks that are air-dropped into conference reports.

The House Appropriations Committee will attach earmarks to the remaining appropriations bills before consideration on the House floor, which will allow Members to attempt to strike out individual earmarks.

In other words, the attempt to do this under the table has failed. The good news in this campaign is that they've become embarrassed enough about pork to try to hide it -- a huge change since fall of 2005 when PorkBusters got started -- and that they're also unable to pull off the most egregious efforts at hiding it. There's still a long way to go in achieving transparency, but this is no small thing.

UPDATE: I'm hearing that there may be some backsliding on this deal, so stay tuned.

THE ENFORCER: "In a move that has executives from movie studios and record labels grinning from ear to ear, AT&T has announced that it will develop and deploy technology that will attempt to keep pirated content off its network."

PETER ROBINSON INTERVIEWS FRED THOMPSON. It goes beyond the kinds of things covered on Leno.

UPDATE: Fred Thompson is blogging, too. Say what you will, but he clearly gets the new media.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Somehow, this post manages to be both "breathless" and "solemn" at the same time! How do I do it? Ah, that's the secret that eludes the lesser lights, isn't it?

MORE: A look at who's blogging in the Presidential race.

RASMUSSEN: "Just 20% of American voters want Congress to try and pass the immigration reform bill that failed in the Senate last week. . . . Sixty-nine percent (69%) of voters would favor an approach that focuses 'exclusively on securing the border and reducing illegal immigration.'" I think it's fair to say that supporters didn't make the case.

PORKBUSTERS GOT MENTIONED ON THE HOUSE FLOOR TODAY:

ANOTHER ASSASSINATION IN LEBANON. Michael Totten comments: "Those who 'engage' tyrants for a living need to pay more attention. The Syrian regime has had the same modus operandi almost as long as I have been alive. It's time to catch up. . . . It's amazing what third-rate fly-blown dictatorships get away with these days."

They get away with it because we have a political culture that makes stopping them seem, somehow, unthinkable.

WHY THE RUSH ON THE IMMIGRATION BILL? I don't know, but speculation abounds. Hard to believe that enforcement could make this much difference, but if it did that would certainly undercut one argument -- that there's nothing else we can do -- for the bill.

AUSTIN BAY TALKS TO Dr. David Kilcullen -- Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser to Gen. Petraeus -- on this week's Blog Week in Review.

JAMES LILEKS ON DOWNTOWN BEAUTIFICATION: "If you’ve ever visited one of those sad deindustrialized cities with a moribund core, you know how they tried to bring the downtown back: banners and trees. If not trees, then flower baskets hanging from ornamental light fixtures. But certainly banners. If you hang something from every block that says History District or Pennsylvania’s Culture: On the Grow or Home of the 2003 Upper West New York Jazz Festival people will come back."

He's right that that doesn't work. But downtown Knoxville has gotten better -- the Insta-Daughter and I had lunch downtown on Market Square today (her idea) -- and it was a bustling scene. Knoxville tried the trees, banners, brick-paved sidewalk stuff. But what mostly worked was businesses starting on their own, and people moving downtown. There's now a booming downtown scene, but it's pretty muched happened spontaneously, not because of the city's various development schemes, which have been going on since Nixon was President. But one thing has made a difference: Parking! It's easy and cheap to park, and that's key.

REPUBLICANS MAKING GAINS ON YOUTUBE: But Democrats are still ahead.

"ACCOUNTABILITY JOURNALISM" AT THE AP? Let's start with a little accountability on the part of journalism, okay? "You would think that given the glut of opinion, 'mainstream media' organizations like the AP would emphasize what they are particularly good at, namely impartial reporting. But maybe they weren't that good at it to begin with."

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: People are still fighting over earmarks:

The congressional spending season began with a blowup over earmarks in the House yesterday, as the first bill to reach a vote prompted a White House veto threat and scores of amendments from Republicans furious with Democrats' handling of pet-project spending in the measures.

Debate on the $36 billion homeland security bill, which would fund the Federal Emergency Management Agency, border security and counterterrorism measures, bogged down last night as Republicans pushed scores of amendments aimed at banning the use of counterterrorism money for designer handbags, puppet shows and other programs included in the legislation.

Hard to see why anyone would want to oppose those. And Nancy Pelosi has a cheery suggestion:

"Why don't we just leave this room today forgetting the word 'earmark'?" suggested Pelosi. "This is a way for . . . members to come together, sometimes in a bipartisan way, to have the Congress of the United States determine some of what is in the appropriations bills instead of just leaving it up to the White House."

Indeed! It would have been nice, of course, if the Republicans had been against this stuff before the last election. Heck, they might still be in the majority . . . .

MR. WIZARD has died.

JOHN KASS ON JOURNALISM AND HATE CRIME: "Why journalists play down black-on-white crime would take more than a few columns to answer. We don't want to give comfort to white racists. It also may have something to do with our politics. . . . Hate crimes and the lack of hate-crime status depend on the politics of the day."

RAND SIMBERG ON the Law of the Sea Treaty and the Moon Treaty. One distinction is that the LoST gives the United States a few things that we want, while the Moon Treaty gives us basically nothing.

BUSTED: "Indonesian police have arrested the alleged leader of a South East Asian terror group blamed for the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings."

IMPEACH BUSH! "This is the last straw."

RAZORBLOGGING: The Braun Pulsonic Shaver gets a review from Popular Mechanics, who call it an "exciting moment for grooming."

AL QAEDA FAILS sexual politics.

UPDATE: Maybe it has to do with the hair: "Don't they have something in the al-Qaeda manual about mullets not being cool?"

"HAMAS APPEARS TO BE WINNING CIVIL WAR:" Wow, that was fast. Just yesterday we were merely on the brink.

UPDATE: Related item here. "The MSM's reluctance to call the Gaza civil war a civil war --the New York Times this morning refers to 'what is beginning to look increasingly like a civil war'-- is because the Gaza meltdown doesn't fit the tired media narrative that sees America as 'breeding terrorists' in Iraq and the conflict in the Palestinian territories as the result of Israeli oppression." Yeah, this almost looks like terrorism is the preferred tactic of Arab terrorists for reasons of their own, or something.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Okay, now that Mahmoud Abbas is calling it a civil war, can we consider it official?

MORE: Okay this from Andrew Sullivan is incoherent, even by his recent standards:

Glenn Reynolds is surely right that what is going on in the Palestinian territories is a civil war. What I don't understand is why he doesn't therefore support invading the place and occupying it indefinitely to curb the Islamist threat. I mean: al Qaeda and Islamists are gaining ground in Gaza and the West Bank. What are we waiting for?

It's not like we invaded Iraq for these reasons, after all. Nor is Andrew, so far as I know, calling for an Iraq withdrawal. So what is he getting at here, beyond mindless snark? Not much, it seems.

A LOOK AT RUSSIA: "The really bad news is, most Russians are still not aware of how screwed up their Soviet era military was. . . . The one effective weapon the Soviets did have were their nuclear armed ballistic missiles. Better maintained than the rest of the military, enough of this missile fleet would work, if used, to devastate Western nations. Russia still has a large part of that nuclear arsenal. But that does not make Russians feel like a superpower. That's because Russia no longer has the huge fleet, air force and army. And that's because this huge force was all an expensive illusion, which was disbanded in the 1990s, once it was obvious what a waste it all was."

STEPHEN GORDON HAS THOUGHTS ON living dangerously.

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, government would be crushing speech it didn't like. And they were right! "Rush Limbaugh has long been a thorn in the side of liberals, but now, because of him, some Democratic politicians don't even want to join with a local radio station to broadcast hurricane information. Radio station WIOD, AM 610, has been the official channel for emergency information from Broward County government for the past year. The County Commission, all Democrats, balked at renewing the deal Tuesday, unable to stomach the station also being home to Limbaugh's talk show."

FRED THOMPSON ON THE TONIGHT SHOW: A.C. Kleinheider has video and a roundup. I meant to watch but got distracted with a sick kid.

AN IRANIAN SEX SCANDAL! Well, sort of.

MORE ON CAIR, and where the money comes from. As I said before, if CAIR were opposing abortion, or promoting gun rights, its paltry membership and dubious funding sources would have gotten a lot more media attention.

ANOTHER REASON WHY BUSH HAS NO CREDIBILITY ON IMMIGRATION:

One of the main missions of the Department of Homeland Security — established in 2003 as a direct response to 9/11 — is to locate and prosecute terrorists and dangerous criminals who have entered the United States, legally or illegally.

However, a recent report by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University discovered a "declining long-term trend" in the prosecution of immigrants on terrorism and national security grounds. "The incidents of 9/11/2001 and the creation of DHS appear to have little discernable impact on these trends," the report noted. It seems that the federal government actually did a better job getting rid of the bad guys before DHS came along.

Nice. Can I say "I told you so"?

RATIFYING THE LAW OF THE SEA TREATY: Thoughts here. It seems a politically inopportune moment for new international commitments.

AN INTERESTING CARBON TAX PROPOSAL that lets everyone put their money where their mouth is. "Why not tie carbon taxes to actual levels of warming? Both skeptics and alarmists should expect their wishes to be answered." (Via Climate Audit).

THE BELMONT CLUB ON THE WAR DEBATE: "The battle for 'political interpretation', far from being dreaded by the Left, is probably anticipated with great eagerness. Here at last is the opportunity to round up the remaining survivors of the Vietnam War syndrome for final annihilation. After the hoped-for Iraq War syndrome, the US will finally be remolded. Into what the reader may imagine. . . . The problem with declaring an Iraq War syndrome is precisely that the war isn't with Iraq, and hence makes about as much sense as declaring a post-Guadalcanal War syndrome. The conflict is at least with al-Qaeda and the the theocrats in Iran or so those worthies themselves think. When an post al-Qaeda War syndrome can be studied, that will be the time to look back. And not before."

But that won't happen in time for the next election. And it's important that we lose the war before then!

June 12, 2007

NON-CIVIL WAR UPDATE:

The fate of the increasingly powerless Palestinian national unity government was hanging by a thread last night after another day of brutal fighting between the two main factions in Gaza brought the two-day death toll to at least 36.

Hamas said it had seized control of the northern Gaza headquarters of the large Fatah-dominated national security force. A protracted and bloody battle was fought between 200 of its gunmen, firing mortars and grenades, and up to 500 security force members holed up inside left. At least 12 were killed and 30 injured. More than two dozen jeeps carrying Fatah reinforcements to the battle failed to get through roadblocks manned by Hamas gunmen.

Good thing it's not a civil war.

UPDATE: Well, some are calling it one.

THOUGHTS ON FAT AND FATNESS, from Megan McArdle.

A "FERAL BEAST:" Actually, I think he's being kind in that the term suggests a lack of bad intent.

UPDATE: Reader John Chalupa says I'm missing the point here:

Why did Blair attack the media?

1. Iraq criticism aside, the media exposed Blair's Saudi bribery scandal.
2. Blair may be providing cover for an EU assault on free speech (with an eye toward a job in Brussels?).

Corroborating quotes from the linked Guardian article:

Moving on to the regulation of newspapers, Mr Blair said changes were inevitable...He also questioned whether papers needed some system of accountability that went beyond sales. He said: "The reality is that the viewers or readers have no objective yardstick to measure what they are being told. In every other walk of life in our society that exercises power, there are external forms of accountability, not least through the media itself.
..........

The prime minister's aides admitted he had thought long and hard before making the speech, but felt free to do so now that he was, in his own words, leaving office "still standing". Ministers conceded privately that the regulatory structure of newspapers may change over the next decade, but did not believe it would lead to direct regulation. "It is possible we could end up with a kitemark that websites pass certain tests, but it is a long way away," said one minister.

There is also ministerial and industry scepticism that EU legislation and the convergence of newspapers and broadcasting would see a single regulatory structure for newspapers and TV.

The coming EU legislation is likely to make the broadcast regulator, Ofcom, responsible for regulating the internet, but is likely to leave unregulated the content of newspapers on the website.

Well, this isn't inconsistent. I'm against Euro-style press regulation, of course. But much of the British press has been even more shoddily political and dishonest in its war coverage than its Ratheresque counterparts here. Lack of patriotism and honesty, plus lack of self-discipline, are likely to lead to calls for regulation. And if it were any other industry putting out a similarly shoddy and corrupt product, the British press would be demanding government regulation, wouldn't it?

I'm sure that government regulation will be worse than press freedom, but irresponsible behavior tends to produce demands for government regulation. I should also note that one of Blair's targets was the BBC, which is both exceptionally politicized and government funded, making Blair's criticisms more significant in that case.

I HAVEN'T BEEN FOLLOWING THE IMMIGRATION BILL'S ONGOING WRANGLES but Mickey Kaus and Michelle Malkin have been blogging up a storm. What's interesting is that there's no comparable pro-bill passion visible in the blogosphere. On the other hand, as Kaus notes: "the establishment really wants this bill." It certainly seems to. But why?

REPORTS OF PUDDLES ON MARS retracted.

DER SPIEGEL: Insurgents in Iraq Turn on Each Other.

I'm okay with that.

AL GORE ON SADDAM: Criticizing Bush for minimizing the danger. (Via Surber).

UPDATE: Speech-related stuff of a different sort.

A NEW PHOTO ESSAY BY MICHAEL YON. This story stinks:

American soldiers think our press is bad to them, but we get off light compared to the Brits. One British soldier told me that when he made a journey of several hours across London, in uniform, not a single person acknowledged him. I said he should go to America where British soldiers are always welcome.

That's consistent with my experience.

STUDYING TIME TRAVEL, at the University of Washington.

HARRY REID PULLS A BIDEN, lifting language from James Carville.

"THEY DON'T MAKE CARS LIKE THAT ANY MORE:" Paul Boutin on why even the best old cars sucked.

SUING AUTOADMIT: "So this is the 21st century? Where courts award punitive damages for offensive words and pictures? Isn't 'the scummiest kind of sexually offensive tripe' exactly what we always used to say people had to put up with in a free country? Man, that was so 20th century!"

Stuff that offends dumb hicks in the heartland is constitutionally protected. Stuff that offends Yale Law Students must be stamped out! More here.

And on Internet libel generally, read this.

UPDATE: Further thoughts from Eugene Volokh -- also here -- and there's more discussion here.

Patterico, meanwhile, thinks I'm wrong to be dismissive of the plaintiff's claims. Well, I'm pretty thick-skinned about Internet trash-talk -- when I teach libel I give my students a few choice search terms and let them see what people have said about me. They're usually appalled, but I've never sued anyone, and the list of things about which I might actually sue is awfully short. Besides, once you get past the puppy-blending stuff, who's going to believe much of anything they read?

A LOOK AT Solar Power in Florida, from Randy Neal.

WHENEVER I POST LINKS TO THE DANGEROUS BOOK FOR BOYS, people want stuff on girls. How about this: The Smart Girl's Guide to Sticky Situations. And there's always the Smart Girl's Guide to Middle School, which the Insta-Daughter found worthwhile.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: The issue of pork is getting some editorial attention:

A second example of why earmarks won't die is found in recent articles in the New York Times and the Naples Daily News concerning the odd tale of an Alaska congressman in the land of the palm trees. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, chaired the House Transportation Committee until Democrats took charge in January. His chairmanship made him a major dispenser of earmarks. He became infamous a couple of years ago by earmarking more than $200 million for a bridge to an Alaskan island with 80 residents.

In 2005, Mr. Young went to Florida for a fundraiser organized by a local developer. It apparently raised $40,000 for Mr. Young's reelection campaign, according to The Times. A $10 million earmark later materialized on an appropriations bill last year to help connect a Florida road to Interstate 75. The friendly local real estate developer just happened to own land along the road, and its value will rise with the road connection.

Thanks, Don! The check is in the mail! Er, actually, it's already cleared, hasn't it. . .? Then there's this one:

Hard as it may be to imagine, House Democrats took a corrupting, goodie-giveaway practice that served as a prime source of scandal for Republicans and made the process exponentially worse. . . .

Overwhelmed by more than 30,000 requests from his 434 colleagues, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, David R. Obey, effectively has thrown up his hands and refused to even consider them until after House versions of the 13 separate spending bills are approved. At that point, he and his staff alone will sort the worthy from the unworthy, the election-year booty from the lobbyist payoff.

Of course, people are offering to help Obey in his task! But wait, there's more!

When they took office in January, Democrats made a great show of adopting rules to rein in Congress' rampant pork barrel practices, requiring that projects earmarked for federal dollars -- and their sponsors -- are well-publicized. The idea was that subjecting the projects to public scrutiny would weed out the worst abuses -- such as the infamous $223 million "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska. But Democrats in the House seem to be blowing their first opportunity to demonstrate they mean business.

Read the whole thing. Is it any wonder that Congress is polling so badly, and that most people think it's still business as usual despite the promises of cleanup?

BILL FRIST RESPONDS TO QUESTIONS about his One Vote '08 antihunger campaign, discussed in yesterday's podcast.

THE GREENHOUSE-FRIENDLY USA! British Petroleum (BP) has a new report out on energy production and consumption worldwide. Going through the tabs I see that U.S. consumption of oil dropped 1.3% from 2005 to 2006. Gas dropped 1.7%. Coal dropped 1.2%. Meanwhile nuclear was up .7% and hydroelectric was up 6.7%.

CAPTAIN KIRK'S Sniglet Blog.

JEFF SESSIONS: Bush should "back off" on the immigration bill. Looks like a lost cause to me, too: The public isn't behind it, and they don't have enough credibility to reassure the critics.

FRED TIES RUDY on Rasmussen.

NUCLEAR TAKES A BACKSEAT to coal and oil in China.

JOHN TIERNEY looks at Mother Nature's pesticides.

DAVID OBEY IS THE NEW TED STEVENS:

Sen. Ted Stevens was the butt of blogosphere jokes and target of blog swarm after blog swarm for the better part of two years when Republicans controlled Congress. But with Democrats in control, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., appears to be working hard to replace Stevens as Blogosphere Enemy No. 1.

Obey caused an uproar among liberal bloggers in March when he referred to the "idiot liberals" opposed to an emergency spending bill for military operations in Afghanistan in Iraq. Now he is under fire from bloggers on the right for moving to undermine Democrats' pledge to be more transparent about "earmarking" projects in lawmakers' districts for federal spending.

Actually, plenty of folks on the left are unhappy with him, too.

IN THE MAIL: Joshua Coleman's When Parents Hurt: Compassionate Strategies When You and Your Grown Child Don't Get Along.

JAMES MADISON on intellectual property. He didn't think it was really "property" at all.

This is something that Rob Merges and I wrote about in the Harvard Journal on Legislation.

REALITY CHECK: Popular Mechanics looks at Compact Fluorescent Lights and mercury. InstaPundit readers won't find the conclusions surprising.

MEN TAKING CARE OF KIDS: Bad for moms?

WHO NEEDS A GENERATOR, when you can get a big honking battery that will run a refrigerator for under three hundred bucks.

This is actually sort of cool, and much safer than a generator, as there's no gasoline storage, danger of carbon monoxide (which is nontrivial with generators), etc. My house is actually wired for a generator, with a transfer box and inlet, but I've never gotten around to buying one, partly for those reasons and partly because our power has been quite reliable in recent years. (What I should really get is the conversion that turns your hybrid car into a whole-house generator . . . .) Anyway, this is kind of neat. Not really a full-bore substitute for a generator, at least not without adding additional batteries, but not bad, and if you live in an apartment or somewhere that won't permit a generator it's a decent alternative.

I already have our cable modem and wireless router on a big UPS that's enough to run them for days. We may not have lights but we'll have Internet!

ESCAPE FROM WARSAW: Another kids' story from World War Two -- and, like Snow Treasure, based on a true story.

THIS IS AN OUTRAGE:

Brian D. Kelly didn't think he was doing anything illegal when he used his videocamera to record a Carlisle police officer during a traffic stop. Making movies is one of his hobbies, he said, and the stop was just another interesting event to film.

Now he's worried about going to prison or being burdened with a criminal record.

Kelly, 18, of Carlisle, was arrested on a felony wiretapping charge, with a penalty of up to 7 years in state prison.

His camera and film were seized by police during the May 24 stop, he said, and he spent 26 hours in Cumberland County Prison until his mother posted her house as security for his $2,500 bail.

Kelly is charged under a state law that bars the intentional interception or recording of anyone's oral conversation without their consent.

These guys obviously have something to hide, and I'd like to know what it is. I've said this before, but I'd like to see federal legislation guaranteeing the right to tape law enforcement activities in public places. With big damages and attorney fees. (Via BoingBoing).

UPDATE: Much more from Brendan Loy. And I certainly agree with this: "a DA who'd file charges in a case like this is reprehensible." I don't know the name of the deputy DA who's supposed to have approved this, but I'd like to.

MORE ON DDT AND MALARIA: Sam Zaramba writes from Uganda: "Give us DDT!"

We asked Bill Frist about this subject in our podcast yesterday, too.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Rep. David Obey says that there's not time to look at the 36,000 earmark requests in the House.

Porkbusters is offering to help!

I read with interest news reports that you may only include earmarks in last-minute, un-amendable conference reports, as opposed to amendable House appropriations bills, because you and your staff reportedly need "extra time to evaluate the 36,000-plus earmark requests members have submitted to the Appropriations Committee this year."

You have also been quoted you as saying: "I think we have a helluva lot more ability [to root out bad earmarks] than the individual working alone."

Chairman Obey, I share your concern about unworthy projects receiving federal funding due to a lack of careful and thoughtful evaluation, and I agree that one individual working alone would have a very hard time completing this task in a timely manner.

Therefore, I would like to personally volunteer my time to help you and your staff in evaluating this year's earmark requests.

As you know, Internet technology has made research faster and easier than at any previous time in human history. By releasing your 36,000 earmark requests publicly, I and other taxpayers across the country could work together in a cooperative effort to determine which Members of Congress may have financial conflicts attached to their earmark requests, which local projects may be unworthy of federal funding and which may have value to the taxpayers.

Thank you for your consideration of this matter. I and millions of my fellow taxpayers across America stand ready to help you evaluate these 36,000 earmarks requests. After all, we are the ones who are paying for these requested projects -- the least we can do is help you evaluate their merit.

Follow the link if you'd like to sign up!

UPDATE: Related item here:

It's taken roughly six months for the Democratic congressional majority elected last November to dissipate the public support that put it in power. The latest Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg survey finds just 27 percent of those polled approve of the way Congress is doing its work.

More significant is the 63 percent of those surveyed who said Congress is now conducting its work in a "business as usual" fashion, according to the Times.

Read the whole thing.

NON CIVIL-WAR UPDATE: "Militants from the armed wing of Hamas have threatened attacks on security positions in Gaza belonging to Palestinian rivals Fatah, reports say. Hamas-run mosques in Gaza City gave Fatah fighters two hours to leave their positions."

June 11, 2007

CAIR MEMBERSHIP PLUMMETS: "Membership in the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has declined more than 90 percent since the 2001 terrorist attacks, Audrey Hudson will report in Tuesday's editions of The Washington Times." Only 1700 members and most of the money from a few individual donors.

UPDATE: More here: "That doesn't seem to be an awful lot of Muslims for a group that claims to be the principal organization for Muslims on this continent. CAIR doesn't represent anybody but its funders - such as Saudi Prince Alwaleed, who last year gave them $50 million 'to create a better understanding of Islam and Muslims' in America. One way to do that would be to have a better understanding of CAIR. Craven media outlets who roll over for them are caving in to a Potemkin lobby group."

If CAIR agitated for gun rights, or against abortion, its membership and funding would get a lot more scrutiny.

CNN'S AUDIENCE: Approaching that of InstaPundit? We're on converging paths. . . .

I SAID BEFORE THAT THIS WAR WAS OVERLAWYERED, BUT NOT WELL LAWYERED. More evidence here:

There may be an unlimited supply of explosives in Iraq, but there is not an unlimited supply of people who know how to wire the detonators. In 2004, CIA operatives in Iraq believed that they had identified the signatures of 11 bomb makers. They proposed a diabolical -- but potentially effective -- sabotage program that would have flooded Iraq with booby-trapped detonators designed to explode in the bomb makers' hands. But the CIA general counsel's office said no. The lawyers claimed that the agency lacked authority for such an operation, one source recalled.

This is war-fighting as HR-office handbook. You can't win that way.

POLITICAL THEATER ON EARMARKS, FROM DAVID OBEY:

House Appropriations Chairman David R. Obey, D-Wis., today outlined how earmarks will be disclosed before conference, and warned that if Republicans “demagogue” the issue there might be no earmarks in the fiscal 2008 bills.

Bring it on! Threaten some more!

UPDATE: Jules Crittenden surveys the scene and comments:

I think we can now officially call this a lame-duck Congress.

Ouch.

SO GOOD IT IS ALMOST NOT AMERICAN!

A PACK, NOT A HERD? Armed citizen patrols in New Haven.

SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT BY BANNING BOOKS! Publication would be on the Internet instead.

Er, but actually, aren't all those unread books a decent form of carbon sequestration?

Speaking of which, here's my carbon-credit scheme: Buy carbon credits from me, and I'll subscribe to newspapers in appropriate quantity, then deposit them unread into landfills where they'll remain unchanged for centuries at least. The beauty is that this will keep journalists, whose jobs are currently in danger, employed. And newspapers will suck up to me for my circulation-enhancing patronage, giving me immense media power. When people say "cancel my subscription!" they don't care. But "cancel my 100,000 subscriptions" -- well, that's different . . . .

There must be a downside to this idea somewhere -- the germ of it came in a reader email a while ago that I can't find now -- but I'm not seeing it. And heck, it would be more honest than a lot of the carbon-credit schemes out there.

UPDATE: I could do something similar by paying a bounty for people's old Dexes. Or whatever.

DENNIS MILLER has a radio show?

SEND SCALZI TO THE Creation Museum.

WHAT DO THESE PEOPLE have in common?

MARRIAGE AS "HATE SPEECH."

A LOOK AT CHUCK HAGEL'S PRIMARY CHALLENGER.

NETROOTS FAVES oppose immigration.

DENNIS MILLER GOES NUCLEAR.

With Harry Reid's favorable ratings now in the teens, I'm guessing he's not the only one to feel that way.

While Bush's approval ratings are famously low, the public seems to regard the entire government, regardless of party, unfavorably. Which suggests that people have been paying attention.

IS REAGANOMICS coming to France?

HEATH SHULER ON WILLIAM JEFFERSON: "I strongly believe that for the good of this Institution, for the good of our Nation, and for the good of the people of the Louisiana’s 2nd District, Mr. Jefferson should resign his seat immediately." (Via Ed Cone).

The Glenn and Helen Show: Bill Frist on Fighting Global Hunger and Supporting Fred Thompson

Bill Frist isn't Senate Majority Leader any more, and he says he gets more respect when he goes by "Doctor" than when he goes by "Senator." But he hasn't given up on changing the world, and he's working -- with Tom Daschle -- on a bipartisan program called One Vote '08, aimed at helping the people that Paul Collier calls the bottom billion.

Since he's from Tennessee, we also had to ask him what he thinks about the Fred Thompson campaign, and he sounded pretty positive.

You can listen online (no downloading needed) by going here and clicking on the gray Flash player. You can download the file directly and listen to it at your leisure by clicking right here. And you can get a lo-fi version, suitable for dialup, by going here and selecting "lo-fi." As always, a free subscription is available via iTunes.

This podcast is sponsored by Volvo Motors, and the music is by Todd Steed and the Suns of Phere, from their album Heartbreak and Duct Tape.

As always, comments and discussion over at my lovely and talented co-host's place.

UPDATE: Some thoughts here.

MICHAEL TOTTEN IS GOING BACK TO IRAQ and is asking for your support. I just sent him twenty bucks -- if you think his work is worth your support, consider doing the same.

Our podcast interview with Michael is here.

ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY: A tribute to both Congress and The Sopranos, in a special edition of Ham Nation. So does Mary Katharine Ham smoke cigars the rest of the time, or just on camera?

AUTHENTICALLY KRUGMAN: In his latest column -- link here for Times $elect subscribers -- Paul Krugman complains about the cult of "authenticity" in politics, and how it makes people like John Edwards come across as phonies. FDR was a rich guy who cared about the poor, he says, so why can't John Edwards be?

Well, John Edwards is no FDR. But the answer to Krugman's complaint is found in the post 1960s political zeitgeist. Back before identity politics, and the notion that "the personal is political," the idea of a rich guy representing poor people was entirely plausible. He could be rich, but still have ideas about poverty, and care about them. But now that we have identity politics and the like, that's impossible: If only a woman can represent women, only a black person can represent blacks, etc. -- Barbara Boxer even suggested that Condi Rice couldn't understand mothers because she was childless -- then obviously only a poor person can represent poor people. And since there are no poor people in American political office, poor people perforce go unrepresented. Thus, the "progressive" causes of identity politics and personalization mean that the progressives' key clients can't get "authentic" representation. This is probably bad for the country, but it's certainly a bed that the progressives have made for themselves.

Of course, maybe Krugman's column on how Really Rich People can authentically Care About The Poor is just a stealth defense of the New York Times' advertisers:

Did anyone else read the NYT magazine this weekend? It was all about poverty and income inequality. Some articles were better than others, and I didn't read them all, but the hilarious part wasn't in the articles. It was in the ads. On page after page, the magazine hawked luxury condos starting in the 8 figures. Pictures of these glorious $10 million-plus pied-à-terres with 24-hour doormen, room service and Master of the Universe views of Manhattan were punctuated with ads for financial advisers and garish jewelry — and, oh yeah, essays on what to do about the poor. There was an almost Edwardian irony to the whole thing; a magazine for the New Aristocrats discussing the poor and how they live with a mixture of dispassionate, almost academic, bemusement and charity ball passion.

It's all making sense, now . . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Somehow, this post from Mudcat Saunders seems fitting, too. Plus, Ed Cone identifies a "grievous error" on Krugman's part!

MORE: Further thoughts from Ed Driscoll.

IS IT OKAY to laugh at Mormonism?

GREGORY SCOBLETE: Forget Iran: "The truth is Pakistan represents a far greater danger to the U.S. than Iran, at least for the foreseeable future. Let us count the ways. Pakistan is a nuclear power. Iran is not. Pakistan has a proven track record of proliferation, including a dalliance with al Qaeda."

Maybe instead of fighting proliferation we should embrace it -- nukes in Taiwan and Poland, huge thermonuclear weapons in Israel, etc. Why should we be the only ones trying to keep the lid on while other alleged civilized powres help Iran, North Korea, etc.?

Okay, it's a bad idea. Letting people worry that we might embrace it if we don't get more cooperation might not be, though. . . .

BOOTED FOR BLOGGING A BASEBALL GAME.

DANNY GLOVER looks at how blogs shaped the immigration debate.

IN THE MAIL: Ted Gup's Nation of Secrets: The Threat to Democracy and the American Way of Life. He summarized its points in this piece in yesterday's Washington Post. He's right -- we have too many secrets, and also too many leaks, And the two are connected, as the quotation about toothbrushes and diamonds at the beginning illustrates. Interesting stuff in the Amazon review.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Thoughts on a Congress of William Jeffersons:

What is especially distressing about the Jefferson case is that it follows hard on the heels of prison sentences handed to two of his former congressional colleagues from the Republican side of the aisle, Randy Cunningham of California and Bob Ney of Ohio. There are also ongoing FBI investigations involving Rep. Allan Mollohan, D-W.Va., Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., and Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska.

The congressional “favor factory” described by disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramof thrives because individual congressmen can still anonymously direct federal funds to themselves or family members, political allies, campaign contributors or personal staff members without fear of being held accountable. Such earmarking captures the essence of congressional abuse of office for personal gain. . . . House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. David Obey’s recent disclosure that his panel has received more than 36,000 earmark requests in just five months — more than double the total for all of 2005 — makes clear that many in Congress are hopelessly in the grip of what Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., calls “federal spending addiction.”

Indeed. Read the whole thing.

ISLANDS AND LAKES: Largest island in a lake on an island in a lake, etc. Pretty cool. (Via the ever-resourceful Paul Music).

WILL ETHANOL LEAD TO FOOD SHORTAGES?

Ethanol is a renewable, homegrown fuel that can help lower U.S. dependence on foreign oil. But as more and more ethanol is made from corn, less and less corn is available for food production, and that’s causing some unforeseen problems.

Corn is a mainstay of American agriculture— it’s an important ingredient in cereals and baked goods, and corn syrup is used to make processed foods like candy, chips and soft drinks. But most importantly, corn is the major source of food for cattle, pigs, turkeys and chickens that are headed for the dinner table.

A recent study conducted by the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University (which receives funding from grocery manufacturers and livestock producers) reported that U.S. ethanol production could consume more than half of U.S. corn, wheat and coarse grains by 2012, driving up food prices and causing shortages. The study estimates that booming ethanol production has already raised U.S. food prices by $47 per person annually. In Mexico, protests have already erupted over the high price of corn tortillas, a staple food in the local diet.

Read the whole thing, but it seems clear to me that making ethanol fuel out of foodstuffs is a bad idea. Ethanol from waste biomass is another story.

"FOR GOD'S SAKE, please stop the aid!"

BULGARIA ON MISSILE SHIELD: Include us!

EARLIER, I predicted that Bush would be dumb enough to bring the immigration bill back. That didn't take much in the way of psychic powers, but now Mickey Kaus lays out the Administration's strategy for a resurgence on the immigration bill.

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE Carl Levin?

GOOGLE RANKED LOWEST in privacy protection study. So it's not just the Chinese they'll give your info to . . . .

SAVING THE PLANET -- or at least some energy -- with white roofs. It's worth a try! Megan McArdle has thoughts, and so does Mark Kleiman, who says that the idea is too simple and obvious to interest the political/policy community. "Just as a child is unlikely to be impressed with a highly efficient engine, because it fails to make a satisfyingly loud noise, or to trust a medicine that doesn't taste bitter, a political journalist is unlikely to be impressed with an innovation that doesn't cost a lot of money or create some other sort of major inconvenience or controversy."

He's probably right. Now if there were a White Roof Association to hire lobbyists . . . .

Actually, I'm a pioneer in this. I've reroofed twice using lighter (though not white) shingles because I researched and discovered that there's a nontrivial difference in energy savings between going with dark gray and going with light gray.

So I'm on board. And there's the Georgia White Roof Amendment as precedent.

UPDATE: It would have to be at the top of this guy's list. Khaaannnn!

MORE: It appears that TigerHawk was ahead of the curve on this one. But a reader sends a downside:

California already has a cool roofing requirement (Title 24). And it isn't as easy as "painting your roof white". There are all sorts of requirements such as meeting .70 reflectivity and .75 emissivity. In addition you need a permit to replace your roof, and may be required to replace/upgrade the insulation (they have look up tables based on your zone). You got all nanny-ish about the cf bulbs, but at least for that you didn't need a PERMIT.

Nannyish? I didn't support a CFL requirement. There's nothing nannyish about encouraging people to give them a try. More on the California rule here. And here's more on cool roofs generally.

Here's still more (a bit dated but still useful) from the Heat Island Group at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. And, you know, this needn't be solely a global-warming issue -- reducing urban heat-island effects would also have other benefits. In addition, reduced energy consumption is good in itself, especially to the extent it reduces U.S. dependence on foreign sources, which tend to be unpleasant.

STILL MORE: Reader Rob Hafernik emails:

When they were getting ready to shingle our roof, they came out with a palette of shingles for me to pick from. I said, "surely it saves a lot of heat to go with the lightest color." The roofer said, "yep, saves a ton of energy, but most folks care most about the color they think looks best." I said, "saving on cooling bills looks best to me."

This isn't rocket science, you know?

If it were, it would get more attention!

NO FIRM NUMBERS, but Ron Paul's campaign reports big fundraising progress.

SCROLL DOWN FOR LOTS OF INTERESTING POSTS, but it's clear that I should have spent my weekend blogging about women's beach volleyball.

NIFONG UPDATE: "The prosecutor in the Duke lacrosse team rape case goes on trial Tuesday before the North Carolina State Bar for alleged ethical violations during the rape investigation. The proceeding could result in his disbarment."

And a potential scapegoat is identified.

June 10, 2007

I'M GUESSING THAT BILL HOBBS WILL WIN THIS POLL, but I rather doubt the editors of The Tennessean will be moved.

NIDRA POLLER REPORTS on the French parliamentary elections.

WHAT DID THE CIA TELL PRESIDENT BUSH ABOUT IRAQ?

SORRY, BUT THE FOOTNOTE MAKES JUDGE WALTON seem like an ass. And a biased one, at that.

BLOGPOST TITLE OF THE WEEK: "Gaydar Love."

JOHN PODHORETZ ON THE IMMIGRATION BILL:

It's a defeat for Bush, because Bush wanted the measure and couldn't work his will on his own party.

But there's something else notable here - something that should gladden the hearts of libertarians and all those who are suspicious of big government.

The takedown of this bill is a template for future actions against major pieces of legislation. And like so many templates for action these days, it was made possible by the Internet.

Read the whole thing. Advantage: Bill Quick.

THIS IS RATHER AN OVERSTATEMENT: " In the world today, there is no truth being told except in the right-wing blogosphere." It should bother the trad-media that there are so many who feel that way, though, particularly as they're likely to continue to feel that way regardless of political events over the next few years.

Of course, the "whole picture" doesn't just include the bad news as well as the worst. Even the presentation of bad news is lazy, inaccurate, and largely useless in making or evaluating policy.

UPDATE: Well, yeah. That's my point.

HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN: Well, when you turn yourself into a party organ, this happens.

BOYS ARE SMELLY!

LOOKING AT Jihadi ideology.

ED DRISCOLL looks at news media objectivity.

A LOOK AT THE POLITICS OF DEMORALIZATION.

UPDATE: Sounds like Eric S. Raymond was on target.

MORE: Sort-of related item here.

IF YOU LIKED THE DANGEROUS BOOK FOR BOYS, you might like Tony Woodlief's latest, Raising Wild Boys Into Men: A Modern Dad's Survival Guide. I haven't read it, but I'm a fan of Tony's work, so I expect it's worth your time.

RICHARD RORTY HAS DIED: I never knew him, but he and my dad were close.

GORE GOES GREEN:

Al Gore, the environmental activist stung by criticism over his house's energy efficiency, says renovations are nearly complete to make it a model "green" home.

"This plan has been in the works for a long time," the former vice president said in an interview Friday with The Associated Press. "The only thing that has changed is that we're more public about it because of the misleading attack by a global-warming denier group."

Earlier this year, a conservative group criticized Gore, citing electric bills that were far more than the typical Nashville home. Utility records showed that the Gore family paid an average monthly electric bill of about $1,200 last year for its 10,000-square-foot home.

Still, nice to see that he's catching up with the environmental pioneers. Of course, the EcoTotality blog was on this story from months ago.

UPDATE: EcoTotality also had this economic analysis of what Gore's doing. Conclusion: "Economically, Gore’s solar panels are a bad investment. . . . Politically, though, Gore pretty much has to put the solar panels on his roof."

IS PROSPERITY A problem for the Democrats? "Democrats cannot end the war (actually, they can but won't), but they can send their tax agenda to the president and dare him to veto it. They can, but they won't. Do you wonder why?"

A PARLIAMENTARY SWEEP FOR SARKOZY? Fausta Wertz has the scoop.

LIEBERMAN: Bomb Iran. "I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq."

UPDATE: Iranians respond with bluster. You know, if we had been firm in 1979, they wouldn't think they could get away with these kinds of threats. If we responded firmly now, we'd get less of that in the future.

But we probably won't, because our political culture makes a firm response to threats almost impossible. Which is why we get so many.

AUSTIN BAY LOOKS AT BUSH AND ALBANIA, while Gateway Pundit rounds things up and says that Bush is having a good time.

THEY'VE ALREADY USED AMBULANCES, so why should anyone be surprised when Palestinian terrorists use a car labelled "TV" to stage an attack? It's all upside for them -- no significant outrage now, and maybe it'll lead the Israelis to accidentally shoot up a truck full of real reporters, which will then cause worldwide condemnation. Of the Israelis.

UPDATE: TigerHawk comments:

And when it happens that condemnation will be outrageous precisely because it is so predictable. Palestinian strategists understand the objective, which is to put the Israeli military in an impossible situation. Everybody else also understands the objective, and -- this is the big point -- everybody understands that the Palestinian strategists understand. It is one giant cesspool of known-knowns, so those who condemn Israel when it happens will be, yes, collaborators.

That's why it's hard for me to even pretend to take moralizing in this area seriously.

DON SURBER WONDERS WHY THE PRESS doesn't write about "the popular death penalty"?

SALENA ZITO looks at Reagan Democrats and 2008.

IN THE MAIL: Peter Ward's Under a Green Sky: Global Warming, the Mass Extinctions of the Past, and What They Can Tell Us About Our Future.

Apocalyptic thought: It's all the rage in some quarters. Which doesn't make it necessarily wrong.

JOHN TIERNEY:

For Rachel Carson admirers, it has not been a silent spring. They’ve been celebrating the centennial of her birthday with paeans to her saintliness. A new generation is reading her book in school — and mostly learning the wrong lesson from it.

If students are going to read “Silent Spring” in science classes, I wish it were paired with another work from that same year, 1962, titled “Chemicals and Pests.” It was a review of “Silent Spring” in the journal Science written by I. L. Baldwin, a professor of agricultural bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin.

He didn’t have Ms. Carson’s literary flair, but his science has held up much better. He didn’t make Ms. Carson’s fundamental mistake, which is evident in the opening sentence of her book.

Read the whole thing. And he's got followup posts on his TierneyLab blog, here and here.

DO HIGH CIGARETTE TAXES fund terrorism? Read this post by Wretchard.

A LOOK AT Judy Garland, and what might have been. Plus, James Lileks' experience with a lap-sitting Munchkin.

JOHN HAWKINS: "The Inside Story Of How The Senate Immigration Bill Died."

(Via Kaus).

GRANDPA SIMPSON VS. THE INTERNET: I've got a review of Andrew Keen's The Cult of the Amateur in today's Philadelphia Inquirer.

As I mentioned a while back, Larry Lessig had some thoughts on it, too.

UPDATE: Terry Heaton has reviewed Keen's book, too.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Dan Gillmor has a review, too. I don't think the book is being well-received.

IT'S BIGGER THAN STATELY INSTAPUNDIT MANOR. Nicer, too. But they don't have Cholmondeley.

CONNECTING THE DOTS. (Via Jawa).

PUDDLES on Mars?

SO I SAW THIS PICTURE OF BOB GELDOF, and at first I thought "Angela Merkel has lost weight."