July 21, 2007

BETTER THAN THE BOOMERS? Dean Barnett on the 9/11 generation.

IT'S A BAD IDEA TO BURGLARIZE a place marked "K-9 Training Facility."

CRUSHING DISSENT IN SPAIN? (But note that the link is possibly NSFW in the U.S.). Here's a work-safe report.

TIM BLAIR: "If these guys can't get simple trade stories right, how can we trust them on complex scientific issues?"

And if they can't report accurately about Prince William County, can we trust them on the Middle East?

MEGAN MCARDLE looks at the economics of Harry Potter. "I am an economics reporter, and the books are chock full of terrible economics."

UPDATE: Further thoughts from Ron Coleman.

A PROFESSIONAL JOURNALIST defends his guild by attacking bloggers. That's so 2003.

I HAVEN'T PAID MUCH ATTENTION to the whole JetBlue / Bill O'Reilly / DailyKos kerfuffle, but I see that JetBlue has pulled its sponsorship of YearlyKos. Theres' some gloating on the right, but I actually think this is bad for the blogosphere as a whole.

Since I haven't followed this closely I may have missed something, but is it possible that this is payback for the Netroots' efforts to keep Democratic debates off of Fox?

JAMES LILEKS: Internet killed the newspaper star.

MORE MONEY PROBLEMS FOR IRAN:

What would you do when faced with a cash flow problem? You might try to curb expenditure, work harder to earn more, borrow money, or, when all else fails, put up the family jewels for sale. The latter is precisely what President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s administration is trying to do as it faces a cash shortage.

Signs that the government may be running out of money have multiplied in recent months. Tens of thousands of civil servants, including school teachers, have not been paid since January. Bills from private contractors working for the government are piling up, threatening the survival of many businesses. . . .

All this may seem surprising if only because Iran has earned almost $150 billion from oil exports since Ahmadinejad won the presidency in 2005. So, were did the money go?

Um, centrifuges, maybe?

MORE EXCITING THAN SEAN HANNITY'S AMERICA: The latest Corn & Miniter Show is up!

CALLING BULLSHIT ON TPM.

UPDATE: More here. "Rudy moves higher on the Candidates I Would Like To Have A Beer With list."

THE NEXT WINDOWS VERSION is now supposed to ship in 2010. Given the lousy experience people I know have had with Vista -- including some very technically sophisticated people -- I predict that XP will still be in wide use then.

A MORE FASHIONABLE space suit. The idea's not actually new -- they tested these things in vacuum chambers at JPL back in the 1960s, I believe -- but materials have come a long way.

THE BOOK'S BEEN OUT FOR 8 HOURS and there are already 29 33 Harry Potter reviews posted on Amazon.

UPDATE: Not everyone is sharing the enthusiasm.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Now it's up to 50 reviews, and my guess is that the dam will really break in another couple of hours.

A LOOK AT THE WEDDING-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX: That's the topic of One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding (The comments are amusing; I especially like "Wedding Culture in the Age of Bridezilla.") And then there are all those shameless jewelry ads at Valentine's Day. . . .

MORE ON CONGRESS'S PLUMMETING APPROVAL NUMBERS:

Congress now has no base outside of its staff, the reporters who cover it and Mom, and even she is wavering.

I am not laughing. I am not gloating. I am troubled. . . .

In a democracy, people must have faith in their institutions. In a totalitarian government, fear will do.

The problem is that neither party shows leaders in Washington who are in touch with the realities that their constituents face. Congressmen and senators have too much money, too much power and too much tenure.

Last year, the congressional Republicans went hog wild on pork spending. Prosecutors put a couple of them in prison for selling favors. One of them was caught messing with the House pages, who are the equivalent of political altar boys.

Voters threw the bums out. But unlike 1994, when voters voted in new Republican leadership, voters elected the old Democratic leadership. Democrat David Obey of Wisconsin became House appropriations chairman -- again after a 12-year absence.

This is reform?

Meet the new boss, yada yada.

July 20, 2007

MICKEY KAUS continues to tweak the L.A. Times over being outreported by Luke Ford on the Villaraigosa scandal. Only I don't think the LAT actually wants to be in the lead on that story.

A REVIEW OF RATATOUILLE.

TIGERHAWK: "I find myself in the rare position of agreeing with the folks at Firedoglake. . . . No, it is not lamentable that Hillary Clinton wore a lower neckline than usual (even if it was far from unprecedented). It is depressing that the Washington Post would see fit to comment that she did."

IS FRED THOMPSON BLOWING IT? Blogometer thinks rivals are smelling blood and observes: "It is rule one in politics that if you don't define yourself, others will."

Yep. His pre-campaign was masterful, but the transition to actually running for office seems a bit sloppy.

KEEPING SCORE: Obama beats out Romney on sex education.

WHEN THE SENATE CONFIRMED GEN. PETRAEUS, there weren't many complaints. In fact, nobody voted no. Now, apparently, he's become a GOP stooge. Wanting to win, and saying so, is apparently unforgivable in some quarters these days.

SLASHDOT: Which Google should Congress believe?

SHOULD PRESIDENT CHENEY PARDON SCOOTER LIBBY? A poll.

RUDY GIULIANI GETS A Bo Derek endorsement.

TRASH OR TREASON? More on the Oak Ridge nuclear-theft story.

BOB KRUMM: "One difference I’ve noted between certain elements of America’s two political parties is that Republicans tend to criticize Democratic primary candidates as being 'too liberal,' while Democrats criticize the GOP’s potential offerings as not being conservative enough."

IN EAST TENNESSEE: Two Blogfests and a Blogathon!

FOREIGN POLICY LISTS the world's stupidest fatwas.

PEOPLE USED TO WAIT UNTIL THEY HAD ACCOMPLISHED THINGS before publishing their memoirs.

AND TO THINK PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS ACCUSING WAR SUPPORTERS of being indifferent to genocide:

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there.

So much for the moral high ground.

UPDATE: From Ace: "He's right." Read the whole thing.

ANOTHER UPDATE: John F. Burns: "I think it`s a much larger truth that where American forces are present, they are inhibiting sectarian violence, and they are going after the people, particularly al-Qaeda and the Shiite death squads, who are provoking that violence. Remove them or at least remove them quickly, and it seems to me -- controversial as this may seem to be saying in the present circumstances, while I know there`s this agonizing debate going on in the United States about this -- that you have to weigh the price. And the price would very likely be very, very high levels of violence, at least in the short run and perhaps, perhaps - perhaps for quite a considerable period of time."

MORE ON THE BOSTON GLOBE'S gun scandal. (Via Michael Silence, who has a comment on journalistic style at the Globe.)

MICHAEL YON EMAILS: "Wow. There was zero combat reported in Baqubah yesterday. Hard to believe. But I am right here, and that's the way it was."

He's also got a new post: 7 Rules: 1 Oath.

As always, read the whole thing. And remember that -- like Michael Totten, who's also blogging from Iraq now -- he's funded by his readers. So if you like his reporting, hit the tipjar.

HAIR ADVICE for Fred Thompson.

ANN ALTHOUSE: "There's some idea, apparently -- here in the midwest? -- that a naked male torso is supposed to be endured with sullen solemnity or something."

RANDY BARNETT HAS FURTHER THOUGHTS on libertarians and war.

HOW TO be a better grillmaster.

A LOOK AT THE FUTURE OF electric cars.

IN THE MAIL: Bill Bass & Jon Jefferson's Beyond the Body Farm: A Legendary Bone Detective Explores Murders, Mysteries, and the Revolution in Forensic Science.

Our podcast interview with Jefferson & Bass from last year can be found here.

MORE DEVELOPMENTS AT DARTMOUTH.

LESS THAN MEETS THE EYE: More on Al Gore and the endangered Chilean Sea Bass.

DAVID BERNSTEIN: "Opponents of the use of the Due Process Clause to protect substantive rights, notably Robert Bork (see, e.g., Coercing Virtue p. 55), trace the origins of 'substantive due process' to Scott v. Sandford. This is disingenuous (or perhaps ignorant) on two levels."

My thoughts on Bork and substantive due process can be found here.

A LOOK AT the science of sticky.

MICHAEL TOTTEN, live from Baghdad.

A LOOK AT THE NEW PATENT REFORM LEGISLATION. I haven't been following it closely enough to have an opinion, really. I note, though, that positions seem to break down by industry, with IT people generally not liking strong patents while pharma people do. That makes sense, given their different business models. I suppose that actually treating different kinds of patents differently is unworkable.

CHEAP, PAINTABLE SOLAR CELLS:

Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) have developed an inexpensive solar cell that can be painted or printed on flexible plastic sheets. "The process is simple," said lead researcher and author Somenath Mitra, PhD, professor and acting chair of NJIT's Department of Chemistry and Environmental Sciences. "Someday homeowners will even be able to print sheets of these solar cells with inexpensive home-based inkjet printers. Consumers can then slap the finished product on a wall, roof or billboard to create their own power stations."

Bring it on. But "someday" isn't soon enough.

THOU ART GOD: At least if thy name is Sergey Brin, apparently.

HAPPY MOON DAY: But it's kind of pathetic that we haven't been back for nearly 35 years.

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: Are Democrats the Peak-oil Party?

A BASIS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS: Norm Geras, Andrew Sullivan, and Ramesh Ponnuru have been writing about this. The best treatment of this subject is Arthur Allen Leff's Unspeakable Ethics, Unnatural Law, 1979 Duke L.J. 1229 (1979), which is, alas, not available online, even on Westlaw. Leff wrote:

I want to believe --and so do you-- in a complete, transcendent, and immanent set of propositions about right and wrong, findable rules that authoritatively and unambiguously direct us how to live righteously. I also want to believe --and so do you-- in no such thing, but rather that we are wholly free, not only to choose for ourselves what we ought to do, but to decide for ourselves, individually and as a species, what we ought to be. What we want, Heaven help us, is simultaneously to be perfectly ruled and perfectly free, that is, at the same time to discover the right and the good and to create it.

And here's a passage from his Memorandum from the Devil, 29 Stanford Law Review 1479 (1977) addressed to Prof. Roberto Unger, who ended his Knowledge and Politics with the plea "Speak, God." Leff, the least diabolical of people, nonetheless responded in character:

Yes, yes, I know your book ends "Speak, God," and that I, therefore, am the very antithesis of Him whose reply you so sincerely sought. But after all, a good part of the book is written, if not to me, at least against me. And Knowledge and Politics, despite the meagreness of mortal or divine response thus far, is a very important book, certainly meriting a little diabolical commentary. So hear me, pending Him. It was, indeed, the fact that you ended your work with prayer that first attracted my attention. I am something of a connoisseur of these attempts by scholarly humans to find and describe some meaning in their personal and species existence, and when nonironic divine address comes out of Langdell Hall these days, attention must be paid. . . .

Well, well, let me not be cruel. I know at least as well as you what total separation from Him can lead to in the way of self-deception and bad lines. I tried to replace God with myself, and you tried, as He appeared unwilling to come again, to put your faith in some laughable Second Coming of Man. No hope. As long as you wanted simultaneously to make something in the world--mankind-- into the good and still reserve the right to judge its goodness, you were doomed. You were trapped in what, to save time, I might call a Gödel problem: how to validate the premises of a system from within itself. "Good," "right" and words like that are evaluations. For evaluations you need an evaluator. Either whatever the evaluator says is good is good, or you must find some superior place to stand to evaluate the evaluator. But there is no such place in the world to stand. From the world, only a man can evaluate a man, and unless some arbitrary standards are slipped into the game, all men, at this, are equal.

Or to put it another way, one more congenial, I think, to both of us, by dispensing with God we did more than just free ourselves of some intellectual anachronism. We also dispensed with the only intellectually respectable answer to the ultimate "Why is it right to do X?" It was not so very long ago that most people (and I, too) could and did answer: "It is right to do X because God says so." That answer was at least intelligible, the only one that did not depend upon mere sublunary assertion, the only one that even if it too involved the transformation of fact into value, was not for that reason insufficient. For assuming that God existed, and had commands, it was He who was evaluating our actions. He was not part of our evaluation system, nor were his evaluations subject, or even amenable, to our evaluations of them.

That does not mean, of course, that God exists, or existing, bothers to evaluate your activities. He may not, literally or figuratively, give a damn. It is just that if He does exist (whether or not He cares), as an intellectual matter your problem of normative grounding would be solved. No more would ethical imperatives consist merely of human beliefs, intuited in privacy, perhaps validated by wide sharing or whatever, but just mortal opinions nonetheless. A belief in God and His will would solve the Gödel problem and would avoid the necessary defeat visited on any attempt to validate a system from within itself.

There are, Professor Unger, not very many possibilities. In fact, there are, I think, just two. The first is that mankind is a species that doesn't mean anything at all, except to itself. There is no evaluator out there. If the species is or becomes one thing or another, or ceases to exist altogether, nothing else cares--except perhaps some other species which, mostly with joy, might register the ecological impact of man's extinction. You are what you are, and will become what you will become, and the goodness or badness of that being and becoming is for you, and you alone, to define and declare. No state of being is more authentic than any other or, just because it exists, any better. Oh, it's not so awful. If being isn't meaning, and it isn't, meaninglessness isn't nonbeing either. You and the species get to live. It's just that you have to shape your living, and its meaning, all alone.

The second possibility is that God exists, and still cares. My own opinion is that the Hand that holds you suspended over my fiery pit doesn't abhor you, but has forgotten completely that It has anything in It. But God may still care, and, if that is so, you have but one epistemological problem, to learn the will of God. If there is no God, everything is permitted; if there is a God, it's even more terrifying, because then some things are not permitted, and men have got to find out which are which. Since He has the right and power to evaluate you, but no duty to do so, you are bravely right: you must pray.

But while you try to live as best you can until His revelation, perhaps you will accept some practical advice from me. Look around you at your species, throughout time and all over the world, and see what men seem to be like. Okay? Now take this hint from what you have seen: If He exists, Me too.

The older I get, the more profound this seems.

UPDATE: You can get Unspeakable Ethics, Unnatural law online through JSTOR, if your university or public library has a license. Thanks to reader Dale Belhoffer for the tip.

July 19, 2007

MY WIFE: "Just another elitist from some Socialist Indoctrinated University."

Oh yeah. That's her.

THOUGHTS ON handgun ownership and privacy rights.

MICKEY KAUS: "Is the infamous NYT TimesSelect paywall about to disappear? kf hears rumblings that the paper is about to abandon the whole misconceived project in which it has blocked unpaid Web access to its op-ed columnists."

It was a bad idea, but I find I don't miss them all that much. I get Times Select for free, but I basically never read Dowd or Krugman anymore.

NEWSPAPERS: Another day, another debacle.

GOOD NEWS: "AIDS drug cocktails may be able to restore the ravaged immune systems of some people infected with HIV, researchers reported on Wednesday. Immune cells known as CD4 T-cells returned to normal levels in an ideal group of patients, picked because they responded optimally to a combination of at least three AIDS drugs, the researchers reported in the Lancet medical journal."

More progress, please. (Via Andrew Sullivan).

HOMELAND -- SECURE! "A published report in Knoxville says federal agents took 3,400 rounds ammunition from a training exercise in Texas back to Oak Ridge on board a government plane without declaring it. . . . A report in Thursday's Knoxville News Sentinel quotes a report by the Energy Department's inspector general as saying 119 rounds of the armor-piercing ammunition is still unaccounted for. Further, the report says someone had colored the tips of some regular ammunition black in an apparent attempt to conceal that the more lethal variety was missing."

THE SENATE JUST KILLED the John Doe amendment. Terrorists will be happy.

UPDATE: It's a New York thing.

ANOTHER UPDATE: TigerHawk: "I think the Democrats are going to regret this vote. I can imagine the oppo advertising already."

GITMO UPDATE: Senate Rejects Moving Gitmo Detainees to U.S. Soil.

THE TROOPS USED TO BE HEROES. Then the media made them victims. Now it's making them evil, like the hordes of "Jenjis Khan." This will make betraying them more palatable.

We've seen this pattern before.

UPDATE: Reader Wright Steenrod emails: "Can you imagine the New Republic, of all magazines, writing a German occupation story in WWII and focusing the actions of some sick soldiers and not focusing of the existence of a mass grave of Jewish children?"

ANOTHER UPDATE: Like the "Jenjis Khan" stuff, these reports appear to have a rather shaky foundation.

More questions here and here.

THE CHRISTOPHER LITTLE LITERARY AGENCY is embarrassing itself.

JAMES LILEKS IMAGINES THE 1977 VERSION OF FACEBOOK:

Imagine you’re in college. Far from home. It’s 1977. You’re partying down, as the Grand Funk Railroad put it. One guy is walking around with a clipboard, asking personal questions; he’s also taking photos. As the night goes on, inhibitions fade like cotton candy in a hot shower, and you find yourself in a hot shower. With someone named Cotton Candy, as it turns out. Who invited her? That guy is still taking pictures, too. Eventually you ask what he’s doing.

“Well,” he says, “I’m going to put together a big collection of incriminating photos and remarks, and post it up at that bulletin board outside the grocery store. And there’ll be another one in your home town.”

The 2007 response? "Awesome! Thanks, dude!"

AL QAEDA FOOLS RICHARD CLARKE: But, really, how hard is that?

A CYNICAL SAUDI SOLUTION:

While Saudi Arabia is not happy with how Shia Arabs have taken control of Iraq, and appear able to hold on to it, they are pleased with how the fighting in Iraq has greatly depleted the number of al Qaeda backers inside Saudi Arabia. Over 5,000 Saudi Islamic radicals are believed to have died in Iraq so far. For the last four years, up to half the suicide bombers have been Saudis, and about half the 135 foreigners currently held in U.S. military prisons over there, are Saudis. Currently, American intelligence believes about 45 percent of the foreign fighters (less than ten percent of all terrorists there) are Saudis. . . .

The few Islamic terrorists that remain at large are desperate, dangerous and good at avoiding capture. The only acceptable outlet for their zealous urge to kill, is Iraq. So the government has reached another informal truce with Islamic radicals. They can live in Saudi Arabia as long as they remain quiet and non-violent. The government will not interfere with their traveling to Iraq to do a little jihad. Apparently, most of these fellows do not survive the process.

Hmm. I wonder if this is the plan. Plus, good news and bad news about Taliban vs. drug lords in Afghanistan:

U.S. and NATO troops continue combing the south, smashing Taliban combat groups, and, more importantly, depleting the supply of Taliban leaders. The drug gangs see the Taliban as tools, not a threat. The Taliban like to puff themselves up, but most Afghans see them as a bunch of ignorant, vicious and inept religious zealots. The drug gangs are another matter, because these guys have lots of money, and more realistic goals.

Think what we could accomplish with drug legalization.

CRUISE MAKES HITLER FILM: Seems miscast -- what would Tom Cruise know about an oddball cult founded by a reclusive weirdo that demands slavish devotion from its followers?

EARNINGS PROBLEMS for Google.

A VIDEO INTERVIEW from Michael Yon.

WILL COLLIER: "I was just interviewed by a camera crew, and will apparently be on the CBS Evening News tonight. . . . this must be the slowest news day in the history of the planet, and possibly the universe."

PETER ROBINSON INTERVIEWS ANDREW FERGUSON about his new book, Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe's America.

REDSTATE'S JEFF EMANUEL IS HEADING TO IRAQ, and he's soliciting contributions for coverage. I donated.

ED MORRISSEY INTERVIEWS JOHN MCCAIN.

OAK RIDGE WORKER CHARGED with trying to sell nuclear secrets to France.

I CREDIT THE NEW DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS! Dow closes at 14,000 -- and the S&P sets a new record, too. Cue more Kudlow gloating!

DAVID HARDY HAS MORE on developments in Parker v. District of Columbia, the case in which the D.C. Circuit overturned the District's gun ban on Second Amendment grounds.

And I just ran across these comments from Prof. Mike O'Shea at Concurring Opinions:

There has been extensive and lively discussion of Parker, yet I think the legal commentariat has not quite grasped how momentous a cert grant would be. It's not often that the Supreme Court takes up the core meaning of an entire Amendment of the Bill of Rights, in a context where it writes on a mostly clean slate from the standpoint of prior holdings. If the Court takes the case, then October Term 2007 becomes The Second Amendment Term. Parker would swiftly overshadow, for example, the Court’s important recent cert grant in the Guantanamo cases.

How many Americans would view District of Columbia v. Parker as the most important court case of the last thirty years? The answer must run into seven figures. The decision would have far-reaching effects, particularly in the event of a reversal.

Here is one way to think about the message the Supreme Court would be sending if it reversed the D.C. Circuit on the merits in Parker . . . That's a comparison between the Court's handling of the enumerated rights claim at issue in Parker, and its demonstrated willingness to embrace even non-enumerated individual rights that are congenial to the political left, in cases like Roe and Lawrence. "So the Constitution says Roe, but it doesn't say I have the right to keep a gun to defend my home, huh?"

Read the whole thing.

DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY.

FIZZLE: Judge Dismisses Plame Lawsuit.

MORE PORK-BASED IDIOCY from the GOP. They'd have a great issue here, if they didn't have so many pocket-stuffing greedheads in the caucus.

UPDATE: Dave Gamble offers a more upbeat assessment:

The fact that there are now Senators that will challenge earmarks, and the accompanying inferred belief on the part of these Senators that this behavior is seen as politically beneficial back home, are definitely signs of progress, no?

Good point -- we're way ahead of where we were a couple of years ago. But still . . . .

GUN CRIMES AT THE BOSTON GLOBE?

Old self-serving rule: "When the President does it, it's not a crime." New self-serving rule: "When a reporter does it, it's not a crime."

(Via Dave Hardy).

UPDATE: And look what the Globe didn't tell its readers. Remember this when they go on about "journalistic ethics." [LATER: Actually, this isn't clear -- see the update.]

ANOTHER UPDATE: No disclosure here.

MORE: More here.

ANTITRUST SCRUTINY for Google/Doubleclick. The tarnishing of Google's corporate image -- from Really Cool Guys to Ordinary Corporate Types -- will no doubt intensify that scrutiny.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Here's an update on the Murtha Mystery Earmark:

The Department of Energy is denying Rep. John Murtha’s (D-Pa.) claim that it supports his $1 million earmark request for a project in his district aimed at protecting the nation’s natural-gas pipelines.

Murtha attempted yesterday to quell criticism of a so-called mystery $1 million earmark to establish the Center for Instrumented Critical Infrastructure, a subsidiary of Concurrent Technology Corporation (CTC), a nonprofit technology innovation center in Johnstown, Pa., that has received millions of dollars in earmarks in recent years.

DoE spokeswoman Anne Kolton said yesterday the earmark is not a program that meets the department’s “mission critical” threshold, noting it was “inconsistent” with the department’s 2008 budget.

Anti-earmark crusader Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) challenged the earmark on the House floor Tuesday, asking if the “mysterious” Center for Instrumented Critical Infrastructure even existed because he and his staff couldn’t find a website for it. Flake’s challenge failed, 98-326.

In response to Flake, Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.), who chairs the spending subcommittee responsible for the project, admitted he didn’t know whether it existed.

Your tax dollars at work . . . though for whom, exactly, remains unclear.

MORE PROBLEMS WITH THE CIA.

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE, we have annual faculty reviews even for tenured folks. I got mine, and once again I get the coveted "Exceeds Expectations" rating. Just like last year and the years before. Either I keep getting better, or their expectations keep getting lower . . . .

UNCLE JIMBO joins Pajamas Media.

PRINCE SAVES THE NEWSPAPER INDUSTRY: Well, both the newspaper and music industries are looking for a new model . . . .

THE TERRORISTS' MOST SHOCKING CRIME: Lying to the press! I mean, if you can't trust terrorist mouthpieces, who can you trust?

THIS SEEMS UNWISE: "Democrats are trying to pull a provision from a homeland security bill that will protect the public from being sued for reporting suspicious behavior that may lead to a terrorist attack, according to House Republican leadership aides."

HELP SOLVE A CRIME, over at Snapped Shot.

500 rounds of ammunition isn't much, though. In Texas that's what you keep in your glove compartment. [What about Tennessee? -- ed. We're better shots, so we don't need as much ammo.]

UPDATE: As the ammo-count suggests, this bust turned out to be a . . . bust.

AN "ENDLESS SERIES OF SNAFUS" FOR HILLARY, in West Virginia.

IN THE MAIL: Sandworms of Dune, in audiobook format. They've suddenly started sending me audiobooks; I wonder if that means the format is taking off?

WELL, THAT APPROACH HAS WORKED WITH DICK CHENEY: "As my Vice President, Jeff will preside over the US Senate, lead policy initiatives, and act as my personal anti-assassination insurance policy."

NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATE warns of enviro-terrorist attacks. Well, the warning signs are already there.

WHERE WOULD YOU RATHER LIVE? Bunyanopolis? Or WalterMondalia? Either way, mass transit won't help much:

This troubles those who want a compact metro laced together by mass-transit. Which isn’t going to happen. Even if you did run a line down to Lakeville, the people in Lakeville aren’t going to be headed downtown every day. They’ll work in Lakeville, or some other community on the perimeter of the metro, and even if we build light rail from Lakeville to Blaine, those million people will be here long before it’s finished.

As I've noted before, the "mass transit" approach harks back to the Gray Flannel Suit era, when masses of commuters all went to more or less the same place -- into downtown in the morning, back out to the 'burbs in the afternoon. It's not like that now. And at any rate, the complaints about "sprawl," when looked at closely, seem mostly to involve worries that some people are getting above themselves. That doesn't bother me much.

GENERAL PETRAEUS ON HOW THE SURGE IS GOING. The full transcript is here. Every member of Congress should have to read this.

UPDATE: Richard Riley emails:

I agree with you that members of Congress could do worse than read what Petraeus said on the Hugh Hewitt show. I'm intrigued by your strong recommendation, however. As at least a couple of bloggers have pointed out so far (Yglesias and Zengerle), Petraeus was really quite careful not to back some of Hewitt's wilder (in my opinion) views about the need to take the war to Iran, the press's alleged ignoring of good news, etc. Instapundit has become associated, fairly or not, with a pretty uncomplicatedly hawkish position on Iraq and the GWOT generally. Are you telling us you accept Petraeus's nuances?

Or at least defer to them. I'm not qualified to say whether Petraeus is right or wrong about all the details, but clearly members of Congress would do better listening to him in detail than to other people who know much less about the facts on the ground.

I don't know what "uncomplicatedly hawkish" means, exactly: I want us to win, and I don't have much patience with people who clearly put their domestic political agendas ahead of winning. If that's "uncomplicatedly hawkish," then I suggest we could use more of it.

DO YOU HAVE ANY openly religious attorneys?

THE LIGHTWEIGHT TASER FOR WOMEN (it comes in pink!) gets some attention at The New York Times. The article's all about how dangerous it might be -- even pepper spray gets a skeptical look, and they're very unhappy that it's for sale on Amazon -- but the real story is the growing public interest in self-defense.

Of course, a Taser isn't like a Star Trek phaser. How well does it work? Check out this video of Erik Sofge getting zapped.

THE PRESIDENTIAL elephant in the room.

WILL COLLIER: I was an eBay Voldemort.

STANDING UP TO PUTIN, in Britain.

A TAX REVOLT in Norway? "Norwegians have long accepted high taxes to finance their social welfare state, but a new survey indicates rising dissatisfaction and, in some cases, outright hatred of some taxes that are viewed as way too high and unfair."

COP FIRED OVER YouTube video.

July 18, 2007

A TIGERHAWK caption contest.

A LOT FASTER THAN HILLARY'S: Fred Thompson's billing records resurrected? But not much of a there, there, apparently.

MORE ON BILL RICHARDSON: Richardson Rising. "WaPo fails to point out that Richardson has also statistically tied former North Carolina Senator John Edwards among New Hampshire voters. I’ve long expected that Bill Richardson could capture the Democratic nomination, for at least three reasons."

MODERN JOURNALISM IN A NUTSHELL: "The Narrative Was Right, But The Facts Were Wrong."

DESPERATE TO STAY IN THE QUEUE:

A pregnant woman in inflation-ridden Zimbabwe gave birth in a queue for groceries rather than surrender her place to other shoppers, Zimbabwe's state newspaper the Herald has reported.

Other shoppers didn't come to her aid for fear of losing their own places in line. Socialism -- it's funny when Keith Laumer writes about it, but not in real life.

WORST CONGRESS EVER? "14% job approval. Nixon did better. On the day he left office!"

As I've noted before, this has gone past the point of being funny. It's really worrisome.

UPDATE: Reader Ranald Hay takes a contrary view on Congress:

With due respect, this may be the finest congress in living memory. They've gotten almost NOTHING done, and little seems possible until '09.

Good point!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Richard Aubrey is less positive:

To repeat:

Civil institutions falling apart. The military is the most trusted institution in the country. The only institution which comes close in efficiency is ad hoc packs, and they don't hear about each other or themselves. They don't know what they can do until they do it, are forced to do it by the failure of formal institutions.

This is scary.

Yeah, that's more my take.

A RELIGIOUS HATE CRIME? Gaia's worshippers are angry.

EXPLOSION AT GRAND CENTRAL: An accident, apparently, but Ed Driscoll has lots of stuff rounded up. And Dan Riehl notices something: "But what caught my eye via Drudge was this picture. Everyone is taking video, or snapping photos with their cell phones. I imagine they easily outnumber the journalists doing the same."

UPDATE: Ron Coleman: "Yes, we’re all on board — journalism is something you do, not something you 'are,' i.e., not a privileged caste."

WELL, I'M HOME: No photo-traffic-blogging today, as the Interstate was wreck-free. It's not bad going to Nashville and back in one day, but it winds up being 6-8 hours of driving for a two hour meeting even when there are no holdups.

We're nearly done with our revised (Tennessee) constitutional language, so there was more pre- and post-meeting banter than usual; I heard some choice Tennessee political gossip that I guess I won't repeat -- people ought to be able to talk without worrying that their words will be blogged. But I think it's gone well, and I've appreciated the way the politicians and lawyers have managed to work together on this. Plus, people were trading stories on Tennessee history and politics that I found interesting: Ned Ray McWherter was talking about how when he became Speaker of the House he went back and read the old journals and found all sorts of hardball politics that wouldn't pass muster today: My favorite was a story about tying up the ferry across the Tennessee River to keep the West Tennessee delegation from getting to the Capitol in time. Standards have changed, which is a good thing except for colorful stories. I can't compare to other states from personal experience, but Tennessee politicos seem to have a strong sense of the state's identity and history -- is it that way all over?

It was also interesting to me the way the political people looked at constitutional language differently than the lawyers like me do: They're not exactly more cynical, but they have a different take on things, and how officeholders are likely to interact. It's a good experience for an academic to spend time in their company.

UPDATE: Here's an AP report on the meeting.

SO I'M DRIVING BACK FROM ANOTHER CONSTITUTIONAL COMMISSION MEETING IN NASHVILLE -- well actually, at the moment I'm stopped in Cookeville to grab a bite of dinner -- and I was listening to Dick Morris on the radio, saying that Republicans should stage an all-nighter of their own, but on earmarks. I think that's a great idea. But are they smart enough to do that?

WILL COLLIER says that the Associated Press is lying about him: "I post to officially call shenanigans on the Associated Press; I have not been contacted by them either by email or in any other medium, and as such I have not declined to talk to them."

Harry Potter is involved.

HERE'S A WHOLE ROUNDUP of World War II stories for kids. Just keep scrolling.

THE 1983 Apple Phone.

A LOOK AT THE FUTURE OF energy-efficient household lighting.

GIRLS OF THE '08 RACE.

WATCH OUT FOR THE BATS. Plenty of frogs and crickets audible from my deck, though.

HOMER SIMPSON commits sacrilege.

SO MY POST ON CIVILIAN SUBMARINES THE OTHER DAY led me to the U.S. Submarines website, where I learned of some pretty impressive private subs:

The Phoenix 1000

The ultimate personal transportation device, 65 meters (213 ft.) in length with 470 square meters (5000 sq. ft.) of interior space on 4 levels.

Powered on the surface by twin turbocharged marine diesels, all of our luxury submarine models, with the exception of the small Triton 650, have extended surface range and are capable of diving to 305 meters (1000'). Bad weather? Simply close the hatch and dive, cruising effortlessly far below the waves in air conditioned comfort. The submarines' battery capacity and life support systems allow you to stay submerged for days at a time.

That's pretty cool, though some of this stuff seems to be projected rather than currently available.

MORE EARMARKS: Rep. Charles Rangel puts in money for . . . The Rangel Library! Plus, free training for Hollywood employees.

Probably not the biggest reasons why Congress's poll ratings are hitting new lows, but certainly symptomatic.

A LOOK AT malaria in Malawi: "Director of Preventive Health Services Dr. Habib Somanje defends government decision to use DDT to destroy malaria, arguing that it (DDT) shall only be used in indoor sprays. Somanje observes that DDT can reduce malaria drastically as it sticks to walls for many weeks, thereby curbing malaria and saving the lives of children. . . . According to statistics 40 percent of all deaths in children are caused by malaria, as established in 2000 report by the World Bank."

BILL RICHARDSON: Movin' on up.

A LOOK AT libertarian class theory. Plus, the Jock/Nerd theory of, well, nearly everything.

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH says that the White House is blowing it on the Law of the Sea Treaty.

IN THE MAIL: Jon Lauck's new book, Daschle vs. Thune: Anatomy of a High-plains Senate Race.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Jeff Flake speaks on earmarks and corruption:

Perhaps the most frequent justification for the contemporary practice of earmarking is that, quote, ‘Members of Congress know their districts better than some faceless bureaucrat in Washington, DC.’ I’m not here to defend faceless bureaucrats. In fact, faceless bureaucrats often waste money on questionable projects in my own district. Faceless bureaucrats in federal agencies waste so much money that they need someone constantly looking over their shoulder. This is why congressional oversight is so important.

But, let's face it: when we approve congressional earmarks for indoor rainforests in Iowa or teapot museums in North Carolina, we make the most spendthrift faceless bureaucrat look frugal. Excess by federal agencies should not excuse congressional excess. If federal agencies don't follow procedures requiring competitive bidding or other processes we have mandated, we should act by cutting funding and/or mandating improvements, not trying to one-up them with equally suspect appropriations. . . .

The truth is, we can try all we want to conjure up some sort of noble pedigree for the contemporary practice of earmarking, but we are just drinking our own bathwater if we think the public is buying it. It seems that over that past few years we've tried to increase the number of earmarks enough so that the plaudits we hear from earmark recipients will drown out the voices of taxpayers all over the country who have had enough. It hasn't worked, thank goodness. For every group that directly benefits from earmarks, there are hundreds who see it as a transparent gimmick to assure our own reelection.

Indeed.

GREGG EASTERBROOK: Ignoring the greatest living American.

UPDATE: Reader Richard Fagin emails:

Gregg Easterbrook has it half right about why Norman Borlaug is ignored by the press. It's not because he spent his life serving the poor, per se. Press accounts are filled with stories about those who serve the poor. It's that Mr. Borlaug didn't serve the poor by giving away other people's money, or by demanding that other people give away their money. He served the poor by DEVELOPING TECHNOLOGY, which in the view of the press is just as evil as making money, if for no other reason than someone makes money from the developed technology.

You won't see any accolades afforded all the brilliant researchers at GE Medical Systems, Pfizer, Merck, Glaxo, Medtronic, or you name it, for precisely the same reason.

Good point. In fact, I had a post a while back pointing out how the anti-arrhythmic drug Tikosyn has given my wife a new lease on life, more or less literally. I got a thank-you note from the President of Pfizer, which suggests to me that the pharma guys are a bit starved for praise. They shouldn't be. As Fagin notes, they do more good than the do-gooders.

A LOOK AT AL QAEDA IN IRAQ.

UPDATE: A somewhat different take here from Captain's Journal. It's worth reading, too.

BIG BROTHERISM:

With little fanfare, the newly appointed Maryland State Police superintendent, Col. Terrence Sheridan, last month sent a letter to state gun dealers requiring that anyone who applies to purchase a handgun after July 31 sign a release allowing police access to the applicant's mental health records.

According to a published report, by signing, the prospective buyer will be agreeing to let health agencies in Maryland and other states disclose any information about whether he or she has ever suffered from mental illness, has a history of violent behavior or has been confined in a mental health facility for more than 30 consecutive days.

Anyone who refuses to sign the release will be prevented from purchasing a handgun in Maryland.

The problem with this is -- at least as it appears from this report -- that this goes way beyond the mental conditions that disqualify people from owning guns, and instead allows police to troll through the mental health records of gun owners at will. As a matter of parity, then, let's open up the records of Col. Sheridan and his officers to public inspection, since they all carry guns themselves . . . .

WILL PRIVATE SECURITY COMPANIES overlook police spyware?

NABBED! Much more here.

RUDY GIULIANI HAS A COLUMN ON JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS AT PAJAMAS MEDIA. Excerpt:

When I worked for President Reagan as his Associate Attorney General – the third highest ranking official in the Department of Justice – I participated in the selection process for Federal Judges, United States Attorneys, and Marshals, working closely with Ted Olson, who went on to become U.S. Solicitor General and John Roberts, who is now the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The goal was to appoint responsible judges guided by a constitutional compass.

As President, I will nominate strict constructionist judges with respect for the rule of law and a proven fidelity to the Constitution – judges in the mold of Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito and Chief Justice Roberts.

Read the whole thing.

WELL, THAT'S BIG OF HIM: "The nation's first Muslim congressman said Tuesday that he erred in comparing the Bush administration's response to Sept. 11 to an event that led to Adolf Hitler's consolidation of power in Nazi Germany."

DOLLAR AGAINST THE EURO over the past year: Way down.

Is that bad? I don't know. Over the same period it's been rising against the Yen, which is the comparison we used to worry about.

ANOTHER DEFEAT FOR MAYOR BLOOMBERG: "With his traffic-fee proposal all but dead, Mayor Michael Bloomberg lashed out Tuesday at lawmakers who blocked it, saying they were gutless and had jeopardized a 'once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.'"

THE POWER TO TAX IS THE POWER TO DESTROY: Professor Bainbridge looks at the latest example.

CONGRESSIONAL FECKLESSNESS:

While pressing President Bush all year to begin bringing troops home from Iraq, lawmakers leading the legislative campaign have not developed any plans to confront the widespread killing that could follow a pullout. . . .

"I wouldn't be surprised if it's horrendous," said House Appropriations Committee Chairman David R. Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat who has helped lead the drive against the war. "The only hope for the Iraqis is their own damned government, and there's slim hope for that."

Apparently, our own damned government isn't good for much.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey: Republicans call Reid's bluff. Most amusing bit -- Reid skipped his own all-nighter: "Reid didn't even bother to attend his own No Snooze Until We Lose party after the first instruction motion, choosing to hit the sack instead while Republicans took the podium all night long."

From the comments: "This was primarily a Democrat fund-raiser. At least it pulled Republicans together."

Plus, "Byrd doesn't give a damn."

MORE: Much more on the slumber party, including this important question: "Why can't the Senators change their own sheets?"

RICH KARLGAARD notes a strangely underreported story about the global economy: "The global economy from 2003 to 2007 has grown about 5% a year. It is a quarter bigger than it was five years ago--about $15 trillion a year bigger. That's equivalent to adding a new North America to the global economy. Each year. Wow." It's news to me.

July 17, 2007

SHOULD GREAT BRITAIN invade Zimbabwe?

FOILING A RUSSIAN PLOT TO KILL BORIS BEREZOVSKY.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS isn't out yet, but it's already online.

VETS FOR FREEDOM, on the Hill.

BARON BODISSEY EMAILS: "I just attempted to post at Gates of Vienna, and was told by an automatic message that our blog is suspected of being a spam blog, and has been blocked by Blogger." It's not spam.

IS THERE SOMETHING FISHY in Al Gore's enviro-talk? Rebecca Keeble of the International Humane Society writes:

ONLY one week after Live Earth, Al Gore's green credentials slipped while hosting his daughter's wedding in Beverly Hills.

Gore and his guests at the weekend ceremony dined on Chilean sea bass - arguably one of the world's most threatened fish species.

Also known as Patagonian toothfish, the species is under pressure from illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing activities in the Southern Ocean, jeopardising the sustainability of remaining stocks.

This keeps happening.

UPDATE: Reader Dave Mason thinks Al Gore deserves credit for bringing attention to the problem, rather than blame from the small-minded: "In Al's defense, I did not know that the Chilean sea bass was endangered. By this act of selfless consumption, awareness has been raised. I will continue to not eat Chilean sea bass, and Al has once again saved some portion of the planet. Give that man a Nobel prize and some lemon juice."

ANOTHER UPDATE: TigerHawk rises to Gore's defense:

It seems a little harsh to pick on the Gorebot, as the International Humane Society has done, for serving Chilean sea bass at his daughter's wedding. For starters, what father even knows the menu at his daughter's wedding in advance, much less influences its selection? Indeed, had word gotten out that Gore was micro-managing his daughter's wedding for political effect, even liberals would be making fun of him.

Good point. But as I've noted before, when you speak in terms of moral crusades, sin, and righteousness, people will tend to hold you to a higher standard. Ask Sen. Vitter.

MORE: It appears there's less to this story than the above suggests. Al Gore, victim of environmentalist exaggeration?

PLANS IN CASE OF A flu epidemic.

MAX BOOT: "You don’t hear much about Anbar Province anymore. That’s because this area, once the scene of the heaviest fighting in Iraq, has turned remarkably quiet of late." He's got a lengthy email from a soldier there.

THE POLITICO: Senate GOP resurgent on Iraq.

UPDATE: McCain weighs in: "A man addresses the boys."

ANOTHER UPDATE: More on McCain from Captain Ed.

TIME'S RIGHT: My brother's new CD is out. We used the title cut for one of our podcasts and quite a few people liked it enough to email about it. It's downloadable at the link, as are the rest of their tunes. I like 'em!

TASTE-TESTING EMERGENCY RATIONS. I keep some of these in the car, so I was glad to see them do so well. You can also pack a few of these. I used to pack Balance Bars, but people kept eating those.

CUT AND RUN.

DOW CRACKS 14,000, FINISHES AT RECORD HIGH. Kudlow will be saying "I told you so" again today.

UPDATE: Oops, he's already done it!

STILL MORE ON those missing bees.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: The House is doing better than the Senate:

As Democrats attempt to curb criticism of the earmarking process, the House is leading in one area: reducing the cost of lawmakers’ pet projects in the annual appropriations bills.

But the House’s reduction in spending on earmarking by at least 50 percent from fiscal 2006 levels has some members worried. They are concerned that they will head into conference negotiations with the Senate at a disadvantage because that chamber’s spending bills will contain many more earmarks from the start.

“It’s going to be a House-Senate battle,” said House appropriator Sam Farr, D-Calif. . . .

House appropriators have long complained that the Senate tries to squeeze more earmarks into its spending bills.

“When we were in the majority, we used to say the Democrats are the opposition and the Senate is the enemy,” Rep. James T. Walsh, R-N.Y., recently said with a grin. Walsh is a veteran appropriator and ranking member of the Labor-HHS-Education panel.

This year the House and Senate earmark gap has grown. “What you are seeing this year is the discrepancy is enhanced,” said Jim Dyer, a former GOP staff director of the House Appropriations Committee.

The Senate GOP leadership remains lame, too:

Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-S.C.) speedy ascension to de facto leader of the Senate’s conservatives may have won him a number of fans among fiscal hawks, reform-minded watchdogs and some fellow Republican Senators, who applaud the first-term Senator for his willingness to buck the chamber’s “Old Boy” traditions. But DeMint’s tactics have started to chafe GOP leaders and prompted private warnings that their tolerance has worn thin. . . .

His ongoing fight with Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) over earmarks reforms, has begun to irritate Republican Senate elders, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Minority Whip Trent Lott (Miss.).According to several Republicans, party leaders have made it clear to DeMint that while they may give him some running room over the next few appropriations-laden weeks, they will not tolerate what they see as repeated efforts to hijack the Senate floor and the public spotlight.

DeMint declined to comment directly on any warning leadership may have delivered to him regarding his increasingly high-profile crusades. But he did say it is up to McConnell and other GOP leaders to take up the mantle of reform if they do not want others to do so.

The entire GOP leadership should be doing this sort of thing, instead of being upstaged by a freshman Senator and then grousing about it.

STRATEGYPAGE ON IRAQ: "The war in Iraq is mostly about information, and these days the terrorists have less of it, and Iraqi and coalition troops have more of it. But the war is still not the major problem. Corruption and incompetent government are."

ARNOLD KLING LOOKS AT GEORGE BUSH'S PRESIDENCY:

As I listen to people discuss the Presidency of George Bush, I find myself hearing the same things over and over. He has been too ideological, too closed-minded, too partisan, and too incompetent, resulting in a disastrous Presidency. I am not sure that this analysis will survive a more sober, detached perspective. Later in this essay, I will spell out what I see as the myths embedded in the conventional wisdom.

Read the whole thing. I can certainly identify with this bit: "I have never felt comfortable with George Bush. I voted for Al Gore--although I never felt comfortable with him, either. I felt even less comfortable with John Kerry, so that I voted for Bush in 2004. . . . I think that President Bush has got one thing very much right, which is that Arab-Islamic terrorism is a symptom that something is rotten in the Middle East. If anything, his failures in Iraq and Palestine are due to underestimating the degree of rot."

UPDATE: More thoughts from Ron Coleman.

PEACE ACTIVIST PAID BY SADDAM:

EARLY THIS MORNING, a committee of the British House of Commons suspended the flamboyant George Galloway, member from Bethnal Green and Bow, for 18 days for concealing the Iraqi funding of his "charity," the Mariam Appeal.

Seems like he got off pretty light.

JETBLUE, BILL O'REILLY, and DailyKos.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin responds.

BREAKING THE MYSTERY RACIAL CODE: Eugene Volokh is better at it than The New Republic.

VIRGINIA POSTREL: "People want to keep [kidney donation] as a heroic, uncompensated act because it makes them feel good. Never mind that tens of thousands of people are dying for your right to feel good about other people's heroic acts."

HEH: Iran gets punk'd.

MORE ON NORTH KOREA.

TOM MAGUIRE: The populism that dare not speak its name. "I am trying to think of a recent topic that dominated the headlines and related to jobs, stagnant wages, changing communities, and globalization.... gosh this is tough."

A LOOK AT bilingual education.

MICKEY KAUS: Is CNN blowing the YouTube debate?

Plus, bloggers keep scooping the Los Angeles Times on the Villaraigosa scandal.

WHY YOU SHOULD FUND EZRA KLEIN'S BAR TABS: Er, or something like that . . . .

THOUGHTS ON FREE TRADE, from Daniel Drezner.

PLUG-INS FROM GENERAL MOTORS:

General Motors is working on two plug-in electric vehicles, but only one — the Saturn Vue Green Line SUV — is a hybrid.

The other plug-in, the Chevrolet Volt, is powered strictly via the electric motor, which draws its juice from on-board batteries.

As reader Matt Szekeley says, Bring it on! He adds: "I am a Honda man, but the first company to bring out a reliable plug in hybrid will get my business."

"RON PAUL DOESN'T SPEAK FOR ALL OF US:" Randy Barnett on Libertarians and the war. And note this comment from Manny Klausner: "The war in Iraq presents challenging issues for libertarians -- but it is unfortunately not generally understood that many libertarians do not share the anti-war views expressed by Ron Paul. Indeed, the first Libertarian Party candidate for President -- the distinguished philosopher, John Hospers -- was a hawk as to the war in Vietnam."

UPDATE: Defending Ron Paul, vs. The Politico, at The Corner.

CAN SOMEBODY ASK HARRY REID WHAT HE THINKS ABOUT THESE DEVELOPMENTS?

General Peter Pace, the outgoing chair of the Joint Chiefs, has called the surge a success, saying that it has brought about a "sea change" in security for Iraq. Time Magazine reports on his remarks from Ramadi, which in itself demonstrates a level of success, as the Anbar Province has changed markedly from the lost cause it appeared a year ago . . . . [Meanwhile] UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned the US about conducting a precipitate withdrawal from Iraq.

And while we're at it, has Harry ever answered Jake Tapper's question?

UPDATE: More on Tapper's question here.

IN THE MAIL: Stephen F. Hayes' new book, Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President. It'll be interesting to see how this is received.

BREAKING THROUGH Chavez's muzzle.

ROBERT NOVAK answers a question.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SPACE COLONIZATION:

In 1993, J. Richard Gott III computed with scientific certainty that humanity would survive at least 5,100 more years. At the time, I took that as reason to relax, but Dr. Gott has now convinced me I was wrong. He has issued a wake-up call: To ensure our long-term survival, we need to get a colony up and running on Mars within 46 years.

If you’re not awakened yet, I understand. It’s only prudent to be skeptical of people who make scientific forecasts about the end of humanity. Dr. Gott, a professor of astrophysics at Princeton, got plenty of grief after he made his original prediction in 1993. But in the ensuing 14 years, his prophetic credentials have strengthened, and not merely because humanity is still around.

Dr. Gott has used his technique to successfully forecast the longevity of Broadway plays, newspapers, dogs and, most recently, the tenure in office of hundreds of political leaders around the world. He bases predictions on just one bit of data, how long something has lasted already; and on one assumption, that there is nothing special about the particular moment that you’re observing this phenomenon. This assumption is called the Copernican Principle, after the astronomer who assumed he wasn’t seeing the universe from a special spot in the center. . . .

You could argue that he’s being too pessimistic about space exploration. The space program may be only 46 years old, but humans have been exploring new territory for tens of thousands of years, so by Copernican logic perhaps they’ll keep it doing it far into the future. But given recent trends — after going to the Moon, we now barely send humans into orbit — he’s right to be worried.

If it’s true that civilizations normally go extinct because they get stuck on their home planets, then the odds are against us, but there’s nothing inevitable about the Copernican Principle. Earthlings could make themselves the statistical anomaly. When extinction is the norm, you may as well try to be special.

Read the whole thing. And worry a bit.

YOU CAN HATE CROCS ALL YOU WANT, but they're damned comfortable, and they protect your toes in a way that sandals don't. That's why I like to wear 'em on dive boats.

UPDATE: A geography problem.

OH, NO: "Alert: People who moved into an area with a gun club are unhappy about living in an area with a gun club."

ON CAPITOL HILL TODAY: Vets for Freedom.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR OPRAH? The dangers of too much girl-talk.

IPHONES: WiFi killers?

GO HYBRIDS: Hybrid Toyota Supra Wins Tokachi 24-Hour race.

SO WE VISITED MY BROTHER THIS WEEKEND, and the train set that I gave my nephew is still going strong. For several months he carried the remote-control with him everywhere -- and I mean everywhere -- and it still works fine, which is no small feat considering that he's two. My brother calls it "a marvel of engineering." I just sent them some more tracks and accessories. Always nice when something turns out that well.

UPDATE: Reader Dana Brown emails:

I have two boys – two and four – and they love their GeoTrax trains (sometimes too much!). We’ve had the trains for about two years now and they are still going strong, which is more than I can say for just about anything else we’ve bought them. They haven’t even been able to break any of the tracks! If you do get extras, don’t bother with the switch yard. It’s neat but way too complex for toddlers. I think the coolest accessories are the windmill and the factory.

I'll keep that in mind.

LEARNING TO walk without legs.

A REPORT ON MALARIA, from National Geographic.

And note this bit:

Soon after the program collapsed, mosquito control lost access to its crucial tool, DDT. The problem was overuse—not by malaria fighters but by farmers, especially cotton growers, trying to protect their crops. The spray was so cheap that many times the necessary doses were sometimes applied. The insecticide accumulated in the soil and tainted watercourses. Though nontoxic to humans, DDT harmed peregrine falcons, sea lions, and salmon. In 1962 Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, documenting this abuse and painting so damning a picture that the chemical was eventually outlawed by most of the world for agricultural use. Exceptions were made for malaria control, but DDT became nearly impossible to procure. "The ban on DDT," says Gwadz of the National Institutes of Health, "may have killed 20 million children."

Read the whole thing.

SOLAR POWER: Enthusiasm but not money.

GOOD NEWS FROM OSHA: Labor Department Announces It Will Revise Overreaching OSHA Explosives Rule

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced it will significantly revise a recent proposal for new “explosives safety” regulations that caused serious concern among gun owners. OSHA had originally set out to update workplace safety regulations, but the proposed rules included restrictions that very few gun shops, sporting goods stores, shippers, or ammunition dealers could comply with.

Gun owners had filed a blizzard of negative comments urged by the NRA, and just a week ago, OSHA had already issued one extension for its public comment period at the request of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. After continued publicity through NRA alerts and the outdoor media, and after dozens of Members of Congress expressed concern about its impact, OSHA has wisely decided to go back to the drawing board.

Looks like this stealth gun-control move is dead for the moment.

SUNSHINE MAY BE GOOD FOR YOU: "Americans who live in the South may be less susceptible to the life-threatening allergic reaction known as anaphylaxis, a new study finds. . . . One explanation may lie in the increased vitamin D people in the South get because of their sunnier location."

July 16, 2007

LEFTY DISAPPOINTMENT in Russ Feingold.

SENATOR WEBB ANNOUNCES IMMINENT VICTORY IN IRAQ: "He was attempting to declare a failure but accidentally got his facts right."

THE RISE OF Islamic Creationism.

INFORMATION WARFARE: "In essence, the claims of a massacre at Haditha are now looking false. That said, al Qaeda, through some adept media manipulation, has still won a victory."

It's easier when you can count on media cooperation.

YET ANOTHER record high for the Dow: I credit the new Democratic Congress!

21 HOURS OF SEX: Beats an all-night Senate debate. (Link probably not safe for work).

CRITICISM of Bush's Palestinian policy.

A BIGGER SURGE IN IRAQ?

MORE ON ETHANOL FUEL:

IF YOU'VE been watching the commodity markets, you know that prices of certain food staples, especially maize, have been rising in recent months. That's because people want to use them for energy, and not to power people or horses. The push into biofuels is diverting commodities from feedstock to fuelstock.

Waste-biomass ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, or similar kinds of methanol -- Bob Zubrin told me you can make methanol fuel from kudzu -- are different. But they don't have the pork-potential.

SUMMER GETS OLD: "There’s plenty left, but now might be the time to start appreciating the languid dusks a little more than you might. We’re used to summer now; we take it all for granted. Winter seems like an absurd theory, proposed by madmen. But soon enough, soon enough." So true.

HOW TO SAFELY INSTALL an emergency generator.

UPDATE: Some additional disaster survival tips here.

RUN, RALPH, RUN: "Consumer advocate Ralph Nader told the Green Party's national convention that he is considering a 2008 presidential run and accused Democrats of trying to shut smaller parties out of the political process."

BUILDING better bombs.

OF COURSE HE DOES: Joe Wilson endorses Hillary Clinton.

SKIRTING CHILD LABOR LAWS at CBS:

But even more important was the state housing the town.

New Mexico has long been considered to have some of the most lenient labor rules governing kids on entertainment productions. Two years ago, TNT ran afoul of Native American groups after extras claimed adults and kids were overworked and mistreated on "Into the West."

On July 1, New Mexico passed legislation closing a federal loophole that had exempted television and theatrical productions from child labor law restrictions.

"We didn’t have anything in our statutes that said they can’t work a child 10 hours a day, so we had hoped that [productions] would operate in the best interests and do what’s best for the children," said Tiffany Starr-Salcido, who specializes in child workplace rights at the New Mexico Department of Labor.

Today New Mexico (like California, New York and most states) has strict limits on the number of hours children can work on a production (18 hours during a school week, and no shooting after 7 p.m.). Many popular filmmaking states also require the presence of studio teachers and a parent or guardian, as well as regular meals.

The New Mexico labor law changes weren’t prompted by "Nation," but they likely will prevent a second season from shooting there.

On "Nation," kids were on camera from dawn till dusk, and then some.

"We would wake up the kids at 7 a.m. and were shooting them until sometimes midnight," said a member of the production crew.

Kids were on the show for seven days a week, for up to 40 days, and were responsible for cooking their own meals. Though there were no teachers or parents (aside from a few at the start of the shoot), an array of physicians and an emergency medical technician were available at all times.

In addition to shooting in a state that didn’t govern child labor on TV shows, the producers legally characterized the show in a unique way to avoid complaints that kids were overworked.

If Wal-Mart did something like this it would be a national scandal . . . . (Via Ann Althouse).

UPDATE: Hey -- you can work for CBS for no pay! Wow, what a deal! Maybe this kind of thing explains Daniel Brook's unhappiness . . . .

OBSTRUCTIONISM, TURF FIGHTS, and the war on terror.

A LOOK AT China's growing influence in Latin America.

"WE'VE ALREADY KILLED ALL THE STUPID ONES:" Michael Yon posts another report from Iraq. He also emails: "The situation in Baqubah is still dangerous. Got into an interesting fight today. AQ is still kicking here. I made video of today's fight and will post it in next few days."

MEDIA MATTERS: A too-close connection to Hillary?

JOSHUA SHARF looks at the importance of reiterating the narrative.

SUBSTANTIAL PENALTY FOR EARLY WITHDRAWAL: "An American general directing a major part of the offensive aimed at securing Baghdad said Sunday that it would take until next spring for the operation to succeed, and that an early American withdrawal would clear the way for 'the enemy to come back' to areas now being cleared of insurgents."

THE POLITICO: Unfair to Ron Paul.

MICKEY KAUS:

Does McCain's support of the Iraq war really account for his "cratering" ranking among Republican primary voters? May I suggest that another "I" issue played a more significant role.

The timing is on Mickey's side -- the politics and talking points are on Arianna's.

UPDATE: Similar thoughts from TigerHawk:

Now, I am not an accomplished student of presidential politics, but it has literally never crossed my mind that John McCain's campaign for the Republican nomination has suffered among Republican activists because of his steadfastness on Iraq. I assumed that the two big problems were his amnesty-before-border security position on immigration and sheer mismanagement (the second of which Huffington tosses in as a "bonus" reason). Since Huffington is an accomplished student of politics and we know that Republican donors and primary voters do not read what she writes, either I am wrong or Huffington is disingenuously trying to push mainstream journalists -- who do read what she writes -- to ask the question, "did John McCain implode because of his support for Iraq?"

Indeed. Some interesting stuff in the comments.

MORE ON THE DECLINE OF traditional handyman skills. And a line from the comments: "I do worry about the next ones as there are no video games showing the dad-hero installing a light switch or fixing the leaky faucet for a bonus 300 points." And nobody knows how to sew on a button. Videogame designers, take up that challenge!

CONTRASTING APPROACHES: Antiterrorism in New York and Los Angeles.

FROM VILLARAIGOSA TO AMY JACOBSON: Howard Kurtz looks at sex and stonewalling in the media world.

D.C. IS SEEKING SUPREME COURT REVIEW of the D.C. Circuit's decision overturning the gun ban in Parker v. District of Columbia.

IN THE MAIL: Daniel Brook's The Trap: Selling Out to Stay Afloat in Winner-Take-All America. The tragedy, apparently, is that jobs in corporate America pay more than social activism. The Amazon reader reviews are fun, too.

As with Anya Kamenetz's Generation Debt, this seems like more excessive complaint from the privileged classes. (Brook and Kamenetz overlapped at Yale, in fact). And is it really true, as the back cover asserts, that only the "corporate elite" can now enjoy middle-class comforts?

I opened Brook's book up and saw this passage:

After graduating Yale in 2003 with a double major in film studies and gender studies, Tara moved to San Francisco to pursue queer documentary filmmaking. She settled in the Castro district, the historic epicenter of American gay culture, and quickly discovered plenty of enticing projects. "There were lots of opportunities to do film and to help people with their films, but no one had any money to pay me so I did a lot of volunteering and part-time work," she told me in a Castro coffee shop.

My goodness. What message could the market system have been trying to send?

UPDATE: Another perspective from reader Robert Holmgren:

My goodness, since when is a Yale double major in film studies and gender studies not able to make it in San Francisco's Castro district? Better get word back to Yale on this.

I too have lived in the Castro district with a different perspective. I had a modest education, community college followed by a 2nd tier state university. During my time in the Castro I was able to earn a handsome living as a photographer for many national magazines. In fact, I was able to provide temporary support for other photographers who went on to similar or greater accomplishment. All of us now own homes in a ridiculously priced real estate market. Our secret--none of us had double-majors in anything with the word 'study' in them...plus, we provided a service for which there was a ready market.
Better get back to Yale on that.

I think it's that "service for which there was a ready market" bit that really makes the difference. But Yale, like other top schools, does tend to imbue its graduates with a sense of entitlement that often serves them poorly out in the world. You only get so far by acing standardized tests.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More thoughts from a Yale alumnus: "I found this hilarious because I’ve been Tara once upon a time, immediately upon graduating from Yale. But thankfully, real world intruded and I was able to wake up. . . . I know the vast majority of my fellow Yalie — even some with degrees in Film Studies — have productive, extremely well-paying jobs in some of the largest companies in the world. Or they’re lawyers." You can't win 'em all.

JULES CRITTENDEN HAS DOUBTS about the Administration's Iran strategy.

EXPLOITING POLITICAL IGNORANCE in Europe.

THE NEW Ask Dr. Helen is up! Among other questions, can people with different political views be happily married?

IT'S NOT YOUR FATHER'S Washington Post.

I MENTIONED WARD FARNSWORTH'S new book on legal analysis the other day. Now here's a podcast interview with Farnsworth.

WEALTH AND DIET:

People on low incomes have similar diets to the rest of the population, a government report has said.

The Food Standards Agency found that contrary to popular belief, nutrition, access to food and cooking skills are not much different in poorer families.

Well, food's cheap. And cooking skills are in decline everywhere. That evens things out, I guess.

CIVILIAN SUBMARINES: Making the military unhappy:

Over the last decade, luxury boat builders have begun building submarine yachts. Submarine construction technology has come a long way in the past century, and it's possible to build these boats at an affordable ($15-200 million) cost. They are safe, and there are about a hundred of them out there. . . .

If you get close to one of these yachts, it becomes obvious that they are built to dive. Military subs are still not used to encountering this civilian traffic underwater. The military boats have the right of way, but military boats are now warned to exercise extra care when approaching coastal areas used by civilian subs.

Interesting.

UPDATE: They're entertaining to dolphins!

One of the world's top designers of luxury subs, US Submarines president Bruce Jones, told Bloomberg that dolphins were a problem for the amorous owners of his multi-million dollar vessels.

"Dolphins are easily excited when they sense people making love. They get jealous and bang their noses against the window," Mr Jones said.

The best solution was to block the dolphins out with a set of curtains, he said.

Heh.

A LOOK AT IRANIAN YOUTH: I have to note, though, that I see these stories whenever the mullahs are under pressure, but somehow the hoped-for revolution never comes.

TROUBLE FOR HAMAS: "The degree of the self-inflicted catastrophe that Hamas created with its rebellion has come into clearer focus after polling Gaza voters. The territory used to serve as Hamas' political power base, but now a plurality of voters support their rival, Fatah. Even worse, two-thirds of previous Hamas voters would not repeat that mistake:" This may or may not be a catastrophe for Hamas, depending on whether the voters ever get another shot.

Meanwhile, there's this: We're a first-class revolution and we travel first class! I knew law firms with a similar slogan, but mine generally sent us coach. That spared me embarrassment when I travelled with the President of one of our clients, and he flew coach too -- I've heard some stories about the awkwardness when bigshot executives who fly coach see their lawyers, sometimes second-year associates, flying first class.

Hmm. Now there's a book that will never get written: What Terrorists Can Learn from Wall Street Law Firms.

HUH. I figured he'd wait until November to unveil this.

UPDATE: Dave Weigel's take is funnier than mine. I should've thought of the Simpsons reference.

MAKING CELLULOSIC ETHANOL in Georgia. If this pans out, it'll be much better than corn-based ethanol, which is better understood as liquid pork.

IS FRED THOMPSON'S MIDDLE NAME "TEFLON?"

July 15, 2007

POLITICAL SELF-MARGINALIZATION? Hmm. Let's see if Moore is welcome at the 2008 Democratic Convention before concluding that he's marginalized himself.

UPDATE: Ed Driscoll looks at political starmaking.

USING ISLAMIC THEOLOGY to examine the latest Osama video.

IS SAUDI ARABIA the real problem?

UPDATE: Hmm. The fact that so many of the terrorists we're killing in Iraq come from Saudi Arabia seems, on reflection, more like a feature than a bug. Saudi Arabia's role in promoting worldwide jihadism is what led me to prioritize Saudi Arabia ahead of Iraq back in 2002. But invading Saudi Arabia would have generated a lot more problems internationally than invading Iraq, so if we can do the latter while still killing off the Saudi jihadists in large numbers maybe we're displaying more metis than I thought . . . .

THOUGHTS ON GENDER AND IMAGE, from Eric Scheie.

UPDATE: Best line from the comments: "No one questions Bugs Bunny's masculinity, and he dresses in drag all the time."

SAVING AFRICA:

This is the West's new image of itself: a sexy, politically active generation whose preferred means of spreading the word are magazine spreads with celebrities pictured in the foreground, forlorn Africans in the back. Never mind that the stars sent to bring succor to the natives often are, willingly, as emaciated as those they want to help. . . .

The relationship between the West and Africa is no longer based on openly racist beliefs, but such articles are reminiscent of reports from the heyday of European colonialism, when missionaries were sent to Africa to introduce us to education, Jesus Christ and "civilization."

Read the whole thing.

FROM GLOBAL WARMING TO LOCAL WARMING: Keep those limos idling!

PARIS LIGHTS: Reality Show in Ra'anana.

DOES THE SPREAD OF CELLPHONES UNDERMINE TRADITIONAL POLLING? Mark Blumenthal of Pollster.com has posts on this topic, here and here.

DAVE KOPEL ON Bill O' Reilly and the Boulder sex-ed case.

FREE BEER:

At an eco-festival at a park on the East River in Manhattan, men and women mostly too young to recall the “Keep America Beautiful” Indian came across an aqua-blue sign that spelled it out in no uncertain terms: “Sign up for clean energy and drink free beer.”

Those who signed up for electricity from Community Energy, which owns three wind farms in New York and Pennsylvania, received tickets for four pints of Brooklyn Lager at the third annual Citysol festival in Stuyvesant Cove Park, at the end of 23rd Street. (Brooklyn Brewery is powered by Community Energy windmills.)

“It’s a fun, easy incentive” to switch to clean energy, said Chris Neidl, who came up with the idea. “And it chips away at the holier-than-thou reputation of the environmental movement.”

Avoiding "hairshirt environmentalism" is a good strategy.

MICKEY KAUS: "I wouldn't claim that the political ads made by unofficial lone amateur YouTube propagandists are better than the ads made by professionals.** But unofficial designs for the rumored Ferrari Dino from lone, amateur auto stylists--one Turkish, one Portuguese--are almost certainly better than any design Ferrari will actually produce, judging from its recent products."

MICHAEL BARONE: "The way we pick Vice Presidents is crazy."

ADRIANA LUKAS looks at media ideology and government responses.

IRAN IN IRAQ: "According to an announcement on Saturday night, US troops in Iraq uncovered a field containing 50 Iranian-made rocket launchers, all aimed at a US army base."

UPDATE: More here.

GREG MANKIW ON WHAT IS A "FAIR" TAX? Read the whole thing.

And there's always this one.

A NEW OSAMA VIDEO: "It seems to be from a video shot in 2001 or 2002. If that is correct, then I would draw two conclusions: first, that it is additional confirmation that he is dead. (If he were alive, they could do a new one, right?) And second, that this is a sign of panic, a poorly manufactured pseudo-blockbuster appearance designed to rally the troops, who must be getting fairly discouraged these days."

We haven't seen any undisputably up-to-date Osama video in an awfully long time.

UPDATE: And this one appears to be old.

FROM POPULAR MECHANICS, a slideshow from the Greenburg, Kansas tornado disaster. I haven't seen it yet, but the new issue is full of stuff on disaster preparedness. Meanwhile, these photos make me glad I've got one of these.

DESIGN FOR AN environmentally friendly laptop.

DAN RIEHL: A video about progress in Iraq.

SKILL SET: How to be a better painter.