May 03, 2008

"MY IMMIGRANT VAGINA IS ANGRY:" Won't Monistat take care of that for you?

BLAIR'S LAW meets Radical Chic.

TOM MAGUIRE: "NOTE TO HENDRIK HERTZBERG: Your list of 'relevant facts' is woefully incomplete; try doing some reporting. "

THE SILENT SCREAM of asparagus. "What is clear, however, is that Switzerland's enshrining of 'plant dignity' is a symptom of a cultural disease that has infected Western civilization, causing us to lose the ability to think critically and distinguish serious from frivolous ethical concerns. It also reflects the triumph of a radical anthropomorphism that views elements of the natural world as morally equivalent to people."

Haven't we seen this before? I guess now it's the first time as farce! Though that would make this time the tragedy . . . .

UPDATE: Related thoughts from Maggie's Farm: "These folks have taken the Pathetic Fallacy to a psychotic extreme."

HOME THEATER RECEIVERS are marked way down, but I've never done the whole surround-sound setup myself. I don't watch a lot of movies, and anyway the sound I'm getting seems pretty good. I'm afraid if I improve it I'll start noticing the difference . . . .

MICKEY KAUS:

Jon Keller revisits possible Obama wrang-wrang Deval Patrick--the pioneering African-American governor of Massachusetts who now has a 56% disapproval rating. What's the difference between Obama and Patrick? They were both relatively inexperienced. They were both advised by David Axelrod. They both ran on "hope."

But there is a difference, reportedly.

A LUKEWARM REVIEW FOR IRON MAN, from Kyle Smith: "The first hour of Jon Favreau's new film is right up there with the best movies of the genre. Too bad the second half sounds like a Ralph Nader lecture on America's responsibility for all the world's wars."

MARKETS AT WORK:

Call it the paranoid theory of petroleum. Somehow, dark forces behind the scenes keep us from doing anything about soaring oil prices. In fact, something is being done to bring down oil prices. And you're doing it. . . .

U.S. fuel demand in the first three months of 2008 was down 1.4% from a year earlier — the third straight quarterly year-over-year decline in a row.

Gasoline consumption has risen about 1.5% a year since 2000. But Energy Department data showed demand in the first quarter edging down for the first time in more than two decades.

In short, the tide has turned.

The New York Times notes that U.S. car buyers have suddenly gone ga-ga over small cars. One in five purchases is now a compact or subcompact, while SUV sales are off 28%. "It's easily the most dramatic segment shift I have witnessed in the market in my 31 years here," said George Pipas, Ford Motor's chief sales analyst.

Go figure.

A BUNCH OF MOTHER'S DAY GIFT RECOMMENDATIONS, helpfully sorted by price and category.

VISITING THE Tesla Motors factory store in Los Angeles.

BOB OWENS:

Fifty-four shootings in two weekends. Shot-up bodies recovered in groups of three and five. Is this Ramadi? Basra? No.

Welcome to Chicago.

Note the fruits of gun control. Plus this on the Chicago P.D.'s up-armament: "If the department arms 10,000 of their officers with M4s, the police will have 9,900 more assault rifles in Chicago than the U.S. Marines presently have in Fallujah, Iraq."

POT, KETTLE: Hillary Clinton's flyer calling Barack Obama a gun-grabber. (Thanks to SayUncle for the tip).

A ROUNDUP ON FUSION POWER RESEARCH from Alan Boyle. And some more information here, focusing on the Bussard Polywell fusion project.

WELCOME TO THE CLUB! Iraqis begin to "despise" the Mahdi Army in Baghdad's Rusafa district.

JULES CRITTENDEN ON REGULAR FOLKS and elitist, pointy-headed types.

VIDEO: Healing the rift between blacks and jews, on Holocaust Day.

UPDATE: Wrong link before. Fixed now. Sorry!

OBAMA AND "THE WEATHERCOUPLE:" Are reporters telling less than they know?

Related thoughts from Jules Crittenden.

UPDATE: As long as Elizabeth Wurtzel is back in the news, might as well recycle this savage Jim Treacher clipart parody one more time!

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Treacher link isn't working right for some reason, but he's reposted the Wurtzel strips here.

CAMEL DEMAND SOARS IN INDIA, in response to higher gas prices.

RANDY NEAL'S EXPERIMENT IN HYPERLOCAL JOURNALISM has been frustrated by the usual Internet dumbasses. Plus a few of the non-Internet variety.

IN THE MAIL: Ain't Nothing but a Man: My Quest to Find the Real John Henry. Including many cool photos.

UPDATE: Sorry -- link was bad before. Fixed now.

MICHAEL BARONE LOOKS AT Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright, and the polls. " Is the bottom falling out for Barack Obama? It's too early to say that, but there are some disturbing signs."

Karate class, West Knoxville.

UPDATE: In response to various emailers, it really is a karate class, Isshinryu style, notwithstanding the patch.

DOG BITES MAN: "Robert Reich Demagoguing on Taxes."

A LOOK AT THE BRITISH ELECTIONS:

U.K. voters resoundingly rejected the Labour Party in local elections last week. It was no capricious shift, but a citizen revolt against trendy carbon and nanny-state taxes that empower only bad government.

For Labour, it was the worst election in 40 years. In a massive turnout, the Conservative Party took 256 seats in parliament, along with control of 12 town councils and 44% of the vote. Labour and moderate Liberal Democrats got to split the remains, and even the Liberal Democrats ,with 25%, won more than Labour.

Britain is ripe for change, it seems to me, though it's not clear how much actual change the Tories will deliver.

UPDATE: Reader Nick Walmsley points out that, contra the quote above, the seats were council seats, not parliament seats, an error I'd missed due to seeing what I expected instead of what's there.

IT'S PLEDGE WEEK at The American Thinker.

YOU CAN NOW pre-order Firefly on Blu-Ray. Now if they'd just make another season . . . .

AS WELL HE SHOULD:

The federal minister in charge of Canada's multiculturalism file cautioned an anti-racism conference Friday against exploiting the power of human rights commissions to silence offensive speech.

Addressing the annual gathering of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF) in Calgary, Jason Kenney, a Cabinet member and Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity, labelled "dangerous" the "illiberal tactics" employed by some activists in the name of tolerance.

Indeed.

THE DISAPPEARING MIDDLE CLASS: In Europe. "I blame Bush."

INDEED: "Why the seal attempted to have sex with the penguin is unclear."

I'm going with "because he thought it was worth a shot." (Via Sonic Frog).

IS MRS. CONYERS smarter than an eighth grader?

May 02, 2008

KNOXVILLE OPERA FESTIVAL rivals U.T. football for turnout. Somebody tell Jeremiah Wright.

TOM MAGUIRE: Such language from a "Baptist Minister!"

KATIE GRANJU ON the value of a few skinned knees.

TOM ELIA: Is Obama in bigger trouble than anyone thinks?

WHOOPING COUGH, MEASLES, POLIO: Diseases making a comeback because of anti-vaccine hysteria.

That's what happens when you neglect the advances that have produced fewer dead babies. As a commenter says: "Lucky, hell! Maybe it's the direct result of improvements in basic hygiene, waste collection and disposal, water treatment, vaccinations, medical improvements and, yes, much better environmental living conditions." All the stuff that people, and politicians, take for granted.

UPDATE: Reader Kevin Menard emails:

Those anti-vaccine folks need to talk to some one who has been a medical missionary. There are still place sin the world where all these diseases still kill people or cripple them for life. Any tendency you have to buy the crap goes right out the window with the horror stories of what measles, chicken pox, polio etc do to people.

Of course, that might mean they might have to talk to a Christian or a Mormon as most missionaries I know are led to it by faith...

Indeed.

HMM: Futures Traders Bet on Dollar Gain For First Time Since 2005.

ANDY MCCARTHY WAS INTERVIEWED on Limbaugh today about his new book, Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad. The transcript is here.

STRICTER CREDIT CARD REGULATIONS: "The Federal Reserve and two other banking regulators are set to unveil today one of the most aggressive efforts in decades to crack down on the credit card industry, prohibiting practices such as arbitrarily raising interest rates on outstanding balances."

These industries operate as what Scott Adams calls "confusopolies," taking advantage of complexity to bilk customers. I'd prefer transparency to outright regulation, but that's probably hard to accomplish.

TIM MONTGOMERIE has a roundup on "Red Ken" Livingstone's defeat at the hands of Boris Johnson. Overall, a good election for the Tories, though whether that will translate into actual improvements in Britain is less clear. Plus, a defeat for Islamic extremists? Those are always good.

UPDATE: Roger Kimball is happy: "Boris Wins! And so does London."

DOWN THE MEMORY HOLE? "Kos Disappears Kantor 'WWN' Diary."

UH OH: States Aim To Tax Private Jets, Yachts. First they go after Harvard, now this . . . .

UPDATE: Aleta Jackson emails:

A lot of people who have airplanes are not wealthy. We save up for our trips, and are frugal with the extra cash we have. And with avgas prices at $4.50 or more per gallon, you can bet that owners of small airplanes are looking for good deals on where to go, places where we will be welcomed. Maine has just closed the door to any visit by me or my plane. When we fly to a place we usually stay for at least three days. So Maine just lost three days of bed taxes, meal taxes, rental car taxes, plus taxes on the goodies we usually carry back for our friends. Then there's the revenue that won't be going to Maine residents, and let's not forget the taxes Maine won't get because I won't be filling the plane's tanks for the return flight.

The flying community learns fast where general aviation is unwelcome or discouraged.

I hadn't realized that Maine was in a position to turn away trade.

FROM THE BBC, a look at the new survivalism: It's not just for deranged loners and religious cults anymore!

This story has already been addressed here, and here. But I'm happy to see these ideas get more attention. Everybody's better off with some emergency skills and supplies, just in case. You don't need a bunker, but more of what Massad Ayoob calls "soft survivalism."

HILLARY-HATRED IN AUSTRALIA: Don't these comments count as some sort of hate speech there?

MORE COMPLAINTS ABOUT FRANKLIN GRAHAM-SHILLING in Knox County Schools. And note this, from the comments:

Junipero is so right about how our kids' school time is squandered in Knox County.

FYI, though: No one's going to be sponsoring recess. They don't get recess--not at Bearden Middle School, anyway.

That's right: No recess for the more than 1,000 10-15-year-olds spread over just 3 grades.

Just can't fit it in, I guess, what with the demanding roster of baby showers for teachers, pizza evangelism, and sports fundraising.

I remember my teachers exhorting us to "use our time wisely." I notice that my daughter seems to get exposed to a lot of this kind of thing. On the other hand, it's not just the Christian stuff. Kids are constantly being sent out to sell crap (frozen Sara Lee pies?) to raise money. And, as I mentioned before, one of her teachers turns every lecture into a lesson on the evils of white Europeans, and of Western civilization generally. This is why I don't get more upset at the notion of "teaching to standardized tests." I suspect things would be even worse if it weren't for that . . . .

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, we'd see college professors fired for refusing to swear loyalty to the state. And they were right!

DANICA PATRICK going Formula One?

IT'S NOT A BLOG. It's a journal.

WHO NEEDS GPS, when your cellphone can do the job?

STEVEN EMERSON: "The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is refusing to identify the 'influential Muslim Americans' and 'leading U.S.-based scholars and commentators on Islam' who met with Secretary Michael Chertoff in helping shape a softer approach to government lexicon about terrorists and their ideological motivations." (Via Memeorandum).

SO THE KANTOR VIDEO IS BOGUS: But who's behind it? Obama people? Or Hillary people? It was certainly exposed as a fake very quickly. . . .

SHOCKINGLY, PEOPLE RESPOND TO PRICE SIGNALS: As Gas Costs Soar, Buyers Flock to Small Cars. At least the ones who aren't sticking taxpayers with the tab, anyway.

TIM PAWLENTY: Wrong on Polka, Wrong on America!

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: 45 years since Bull Connor's firehoses, and a reminder that things weren't as some might think.

MR. CONSERVATIVE: Jonathan Rauch on John McCain.

ARE UNIVERSITIES TURNING INTO PINK COLLAR GHETTOES?

Some related thoughts here.

DUDE, WHERE'S MY RECESSION? (CONT'D): Chicken Little Alert, or how to make good news sound like bad news.

BEWARE THE screaming ovaries.

I GUESS IT'S GOODBYE TO "RED KEN" LIVINGSTONE: Boris Johnson poised to become London Mayor as Tories seal local election success.

THERE'S NEVER ENOUGH MONEY: U.N.'s World Food Program Cried Poverty While Sitting on Cash Stockpile of More Than $1.22 Billion.

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: Obama Joins Levin and Coleman to Introduce Absurd Bill to Stop “Misuse” of U.S. Companies. "This bill is a very bad idea."

AN ANTI-CLINTON DIRTY TRICK IN INDIANA? I was hoping for change.

BLOGGER "has Al Franken's campaign reeling."

IN THE MAIL: Mark Juergensmeyer's Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State.

DUDE, WHERE'S MY RECESSION? (CONT'D): Jobless Rate Falls; AP, Economists Baffled.

WHILE LECTURING US ON CONSERVATION: Little-Known But Exploited Loophole Allows Politicians To Drive, Maintain Expensive Cars, SUVs On Taxpayer Money. Are you surprised?

Barber shop, Harriman, Tennessee.

YOUR, ER, TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: Tax Court: IRS Attorneys Committed Fraud on the Court. "In an extraordinary 137-page opinion issued yesterday, Hartman v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2008-124 (5/1/08), Tax Court Judge Beghe held that IRS attorneys committed fraud on the court in the Kersting tax shelter project which affected more than 1,300 cases."

IN THE BRINK'S COMMERCIAL, the burglar just runs away. In real life it takes more than an alarm to be safe:

Jon Sokol wasn't trying to be a hero when he confronted a burglary suspect who had brazenly broken through the front door of his home in St. Paul.

Sokol, 49, said his adrenaline was flowing as he crept up the stairs, revolver in hand, from the basement bedroom he shares with his wife.

His wife had been awoken at about 4:45 a.m. Wednesday by their alarm system and initially thought Sokol had -- again -- opened the door to get the newspaper without turning off the alarm. But there he was, sleeping right next to her. . . .

"Down on the ground he went and I insisted, in a not very nice way, that he not move," he said. "I held him at gunpoint until the police arrived."

Michael G. Spencer, 31, of St. Paul, has been charged in Ramsey County District Court with two felony counts of burglary. He has a lengthy criminal record, including convictions for theft and burglary as recently as last year

Soon to grow lengthier, I'd imagine. He was carrying a knife.

UPDATE: Another report here, somewhat more vivid. Via Scott Johnson who adds: "Unbelievably, the story is followed by self-defense tips (also pasted in below) which do not include packing heat." Self-defense tips are good. Here's another one: Have a gun.

I'M AN ARTIST, DAMMIT, NOT A SCIENTIST. "The artists, Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr, say the work which was fed nutrients by tube, expanded too quickly and clogged its own incubation system just five weeks after the show opened." Growing like a cancer on externally supplied nutrients while creating nothing of value. A fit metaphor, anyway . . . .

AUSTIN BAY on Darfur.

MOST MONEY GOES TO ADMINISTRATORS AND THEIR PET PROJECTS: "Across sectors of higher education, only a minority of spending by colleges supports direct instructional costs, according to a report being released today as part of an effort to reframe the debate over college costs."

"FOX TRUMPS NETROOTS, BLOGGERS REBEL." Sorry guys, the Dems don't need you anymore. "The Democratic leaders’ new openness to Fox reflects the liberal left’s diminishing power, at least at this point in the political cycle. Once feared by the Democratic candidates, these activists are now viewed at least in part as an impediment to winning the broad swatch of support needed to clinch the nomination."

ANTI-INCOME TAX EFFORTS IN MASSACHUSETTS are moving forward. They lost last time, but did better than I would have expected. No wonder the Massachusetts legislature is thinking about taxing Harvard.

JERRY POURNELLE:

I have to say it again: cheap energy will cause a boom. The only cheap energy I know of is nuclear. Three Hundred Billion bucks in nuclear power will do wonders for the economy. We build 100 1000 MegaWatt nuclear power plants -- they will cost no more than 2 billion each and my guess is that the average cost will be closer to 1 billion each (that is the first one costs about 20 billion and the 100th costs about 800 million). The rest of the money goes to prizes and X projects to convert electricity into mobility.

Of course we won't do that.

I detect a lack of confidence in our political class.

A DARK CLINTONIAN PLOT: Spike Lee suspects that Jeremiah Wright is being paid to keep talking.

CIVIL RIGHTS PROGRESS: In Louisiana, a bill to allow licensees to carry guns on campus advances. And it looks like we'll see legal carry in national parks, too.

LESS PRESSURE ON GASOLINE PRICES? This is from a petroleum industry newsletter I get:

A surprising build in crude oil highlighted this week’s national inventory statistics. Crude oil built by +3.8 million barrels when only a slight +.3 million barrel build was anticipated. Likewise, distillate built by 1.1 million barrels (vs. a pre-stat guess of -.1 million) for the first sizable build in stocks since the second week of January. More builds are anticipated as we enter the month of May, the lowest demand month of the year. Refinery run rates were able to hold on to last week’s huge increase by only dropping .2% to remain at 85.4%. Maintenance programs are winding up, so more refinery recovery should be in store.

That's good news. On the other hand, there's this:

Two worker strikes, combined with a bit of sabotage, idled as much as 2 million barrels per day of production capacity in the UK and Nigeria. The UK strike at Grangemouth looks to be settled. Workers were called off for 48 hours, effectively slicing 700,000 barrels per day of production. In Nigeria, a strike against ExxonMobil’s Bonny Light field idled almost 900,000 barrels per day. As part of the negotiation, it appears that workers were going to return, but as of press time I haven’t found evidence of that as yet. The state owned oil company, NNPC, is more than urging the sides to get back to the table quickly. The strike is having the biggest impact of any strike since 1994 and has cost the government billions of dollars in lost revenue. What’s the status of the rest of the volume? That’s from the ultimate strike…blowing up their own oil pipelines and infrastructure.

So that's not so good. But it wouldn't surprise me to see crude oil prices fall a bit in the next few months.

THAT'S A PRETTY HIGH ERROR RATE: More than 10 percent of speed camera tickets rejected.

MAYBE THIS EXPLAINS THOSE GULFSTREAM ORDERS: Optimism Begins to Ease Onto Wall St.

May 01, 2008

ANOTHER PLANTED QUESTION at a townhall meeting.

JOHN HINDERAKER: "The Democrats' domestic policies are an incoherent jumble: they want lower gasoline and heating oil prices, but they block the very things, oil drilling and the construction of new refineries, that would actually reduce them. At the same time, for reasons of 'climate change,' they want less consumption of oil and gas, which implies higher, not lower, prices." I think they want higher prices, but without taking responsibility for that outcome. In which case there's nothing incoherent about the approach at all.

WILL BLACK VOTERS STAY HOME if Obama loses nomination?

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE DIRTY GUV'NAHS, who won Best of Knoxville this week. They'll be opening for Robert Earl Keen, who I know from way back in the Ella Guru's days, at Sundown in the City at the end of the month.

ON MAY DAY, REMEMBERING the victims of communism.

WHY A CURVEBALL curves.

BAD NEWS FOR POLITICAL CONSULTANTS: Robocalls, Direct Mail Don't Work.

PEW POLL: Obama's Image Slips, His Lead Over Clinton Disappears.

There's also this bad news: "Public Support for Free Trade Declines."

Meanwhile, Indiana Poll Shows Clinton With Big Lead Over Obama.

DONATIONS: I don't mention the tipjar much -- I prefer to encourage donations to folks like Michael Totten or Michael Yon, or embattled Canadian bloggers -- but I just checked the balance and for some reason a lot of people have donated. So I used the money to order a new blogging tool that I'll review. Everyone wins!

ENDOWMENT DEBATE seeps into the states:

With college endowments a favorite target for politicians in Washington, and many states struggling to find enough tax revenue to make ends meet, it’s almost a surprise that it took state legislators this long to start casting their eyes on colleges’ funds. But it’s perhaps not a shock that if the issue were to emerge anywhere, it would be in Massachusetts, home to the university (Harvard) whose nearly $34.6 billion endowment has become the poster child for higher education wealth. . . .

“Why do we want to tax the poor all the time, but we let off the hook the richest of the rich?” said State Rep. Angelo Scaccia, a Democrat, said during the course of Monday’s debate, according to the Metrowest Daily News. “We’re not going to break them,” he added of colleges’ endowment funds. “We just want a little.”

From each according to his ability. . . .

JUST SAW HILLARY ON O'REILLY talking about Iraq. She was better than Obama, but I still think she was wrong, and I encourage her and her advisers to watch this excellent video from Austin Bay on the consequences of a premature withdrawal from iraq.

UPDATE: Related criticism from Abe Greenwald.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Okay, this is weird. Hillary is gone, and O'Reilly is talking about D.C. Madam Deborah Palfrey and seems to suggest that her suicide was "karma" for threatening to expose her clients: "This woman was threatening a lot of people's lives. . . . If you're doing something wrong, you get caught, you pay the price, you shut up." Omerta lives.

MORE: Further comments on Hillary, and video, at Gateway Pundit.

DUDE, WHERE'S MY RECESSION? (CONT'D) I don't think it's online anywhere, but I just got my latest Aviation Week and here's a report that suggests things aren't too slow:

G650 Customers Wait in Line

Gulfstream's planned output of 83 G650 business jets in the first 2.5 years of production is oversubscribed by a factor of six to seven, says parent company General Dynamics. Gulfstream began accepting $500,000 refundable deposits on the new $58.5 million ultra-long-range jet on April 15, signing time-stamped letters of intent with customers that it is now working through to convert to orders.

Seems like this is one of the first places a business could cut back. Am I wrong?

UPDATE: Maybe. A reader emails:

The G-650 is an awesome airplane, and it fits a market niche that currently has no competition. In re:
recession, the Gulfstream customer generally doesn't worry too much about recessions, so I'm not sure if it's a good indicator. I don't imagine Ferrari is feeling much of the pinch of any recession either.

One thing to mention though, the G-650 will have a lower carbon impact than any other large corporate jet. Maybe we can sign Al Gore up for one!

I can't speak for Al, but if Gulfstream wants to lend me one, I promise to blog evenhandedly about the experience. I could use a lift for my next dive trip!

UPDATE: The full story is online now. Thanks, AvWeek!

PERRY DE HAVILLAND: "The prime motivation of government is . . . to be in government. Making the country a 'better place' comes a distant second."

"RIGHT WING" ATTACKS ON OBAMA, via Sidney Blumenthal.

UPDATE: From Mickey Kaus, a reminder: "If we elect Hillary, we're going to get Sid as part of the package."

WHAT OBAMA wishes he could say about Hillary.

OKAY, ACTUALLY THIS DOES SOUND SORTA COOL: "I was amazed at how thin you could slice your produce. Think of the thickness of the ginger you get on the side of your sushi order. This mandoline could slice thinner than the thinnest slice of that ginger." Not likely something I'd buy, though.

UPDATE: Reader Sung Chun Kim emails: "I just put in a comment on that ridiculous Shun mandoline you linked. What a crazy expensive device! I use an old Benriner mandoline that cost me $20 back when I bought it ten years ago, and it’s still going strong. I can still cut paper-thin potato chips (as well as julienned carrots, daikon, etc., with the included guides). The thing is made of plastic, but then plastic lasts forever, right? The key to not slicing your fingers is to slow down when the vegetable gets thin and then to stop completely and toss away the excess when it gets too thin. Veggies are cheap, fingers are not--although you do link to that finger-growing article… who knows, maybe it’s still cheaper to grow back your fingertips than buy a $350 mandoline!." Heh. Not yet.

BILL ROGGIO: US troops kill 28 Mahdi fighters in Sadr City. Follow the link for the context.

GENERAL PETRAEUS: Man of no influence?

HILLARY'S Hoosier momentum.

GERARD VAN DER LEUN: The Banality of Sedition.

THE MAN WHO grew a finger.

Mr Speivak's brother Alan - who was working in the field of regenerative medicine - sent him the powder.

For ten days Mr Spievak put a little on his finger.

"The second time I put it on I already could see growth. Each day it was up further. Finally it closed up and was a finger.

More of this, please.

UPDATE: Some skepticism.

ANOTHER UPDATE: This comment suggests the story is genuine.

MORE: Further thoughts here.

STILL MORE: A report from Scientific American.

CAR LUST: Remembering the 1971-74 Dodge Charger.

RUNNING OUT OF GAS? "Not knowing the exact city could be excusable in the grind of a presidential campaign, although it’s not exactly flattering, either. Not understanding what month it is — getting it almost two months off — and miscalculating the amount of time left for the general election looks more problematic. . . . Obama’s the youngest candidate in the race. He’s the one who should be showing energy, enthusiasm, and presence. Instead, Hillary Clinton and John McCain have shown more of all these qualities, especially of late."

AUSTIN BAY: What Powers — And What Weakens — Terrorist Organizations?

"D.C. MADAM" commits suicide.

UPDATE: "Was it really suicide?"

THOUGHTS ON love and marriage in Britain.

TOM MAGUIRE changes the subject at Michelle Obama's suggestion.

MANUFACTURE AND SELL ANYTHING: In minutes. "Welcome to the age of the instapreneur." I like the sound of that!

A LOOK AT THE REZKO SCANDAL'S SOUTHWEST CHICAGO ROOTS:

Tony Rezko may have lived up in wealthy Wilmette, but many of the key players around him are from the Southwest Side and suburbs of Chicago.

Some have been named and others are only identified as Individuals “A through E” in a guilty plea agreement signed by Ali Ata, a Palestinian American from Lemont who was active in Southwest Side Arab American circles.

Much more at the link. (Via NewsAlert).

THE ALGAE ECONOMY?

MY LAW SCHOOL CLASSMATE, Superdelegate and former DNC Chair Joe Andrew, explains why he's switching from Hillary to Obama.

YOU DON'T EVEN NEED THE HYBRID PART: Saving gas with start-stop technology.

SPACE BOOMERANG VIDEO.

IN THE MAIL: Alex Bella's Soldiers of Reason: The RAND Corporation and the Rise of the American Empire.

DISCIPLINE: Some people say that regular blogging takes discipline and stamina. And it does. But I was at the gym yesterday on the machine next to Jessica Paxson, who's a professional fitness competitor, and I'm absolutely sure that what she does takes a lot more discipline and stamina than blogging. I asked her how she keeps it up and she said "I don't know." Neither do I!

The constant working out is one thing -- I'll often come in, do my entire workout, stretch, and cooldown routine and she'll have been on the step-mill the whole time without slowing down -- but it's the incredibly restricted diet that I don't think I could handle. Then you have to travel somewhere, miss sleep, eat with incredible care and then show up looking fresh and vital.

Blogging isn't nearly as hard. Trust me.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL said he looks like Justin Timberlake. Some students call him "Professor McDreamy." But my colleague Ben Barton let his head be shaved into a Mohawk for a student fundraising drive.

Then, when it was over, he shaved the Mohawk off and became temporarily bald. I think it gives him a kind of Stone Cold Steve Austin aura. But although he's certainly not the only law professor with a shaved head and goatee, for a few days he was probably the only law professor in America sporting a Mohawk. That's gotta be worth something.

AT THE YALE LAW JOURNAL POCKET PART, swingers, porn, and the Sixth Circuit.

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: Dude, where's my recession?

NICK BOSTROM on why we should hope that the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence turns up nothing.

GETTING PERSONAL: "It's not so much that Wright's ideas were anti-American and his politics were extremist and left-wing. Obama had to have known that from a 20-year association with the man (unless he only had the association for appearances and political advancement and never really cared what Wright thought). Obama got mad, it seems, because he could see that Wright meant to hurt him and was getting fired up moving for the kill."

UPDATE: Related thoughts here: "In Obama's eyes, the most serious wrongdoing in Wright's statements is their disrespect of Obama."

RICHARD MORGAN wins the Arthur C. Clarke prize for his novel Thirteen. I thought it was pretty good.

MORE ON VITAMIN D.

MCCAIN BLOWS IT: "Republican John McCain said Wednesday that the bridge collapse in Minnesota that killed 13 people last year would not have happened if Congress had not wasted so much money on pork-barrel spending."

I yield to none in my disdain for pork-barrel spending, but the problem with the bridge was a design defect, and I think it's kind of hard to tie that to pork.

POLL PANIC: Obama's bad numbers.

UPDATE: Daniel Henninger notes that suddenly all those famous Obama endorsers are nowhere to be found.

BABY-SNATCHING in Arlington County.

MORE ON CHOLESTEROL from Robert Mayer.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Will a "’proto-prototype’ for a nanoassembler" lead to atomically precise manufacturing?

TIGERHAWK: Youthful passion is really quite tedious.

April 30, 2008

PW: How the establishment media has smeared black churchgoers.

"SHE HASN'T PUMPED HER OWN GAS IN YEARS:" This could have been turned into a story like the George H.W. Bush supermarket scanner story. "Clinton hopped out of the truck without incident and joined Wilfing at the pump. She seemed very interested in the actual set up, acknowledging later that she hasn't pumped her own gas in years." And then there's the coffee machine video.

THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST.

ROBERT SAMUELSON: Start drilling.

It may surprise Americans to discover that the United States is the third-largest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. We could be producing more, but Congress has put large areas of potential supply off-limits. These include the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and parts of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. By government estimates, these areas may contain 25 billion to 30 billion barrels of oil (against about 30 billion barrels of proven U.S. reserves today) and 80 trillion cubic feet or more of natural gas (compared with about 200 tcf of proven reserves).

What keeps these areas closed are exaggerated environmental fears, strong prejudice against oil companies and sheer stupidity. Americans favor both "energy independence" and cheap fuel. They deplore imports -- who wants to pay foreigners? -- but oppose more production in the United States. Got it?

Read the whole thing.

MICHAEL TOTTEN: Postcards from the Balkans.

I'VE BEEN SAYING FOR YEARS THAT HOMELAND SECURITY IS A JOKE, but this isn't funny: "Federal Air Marshals (FAMs) familiar with the situation say the mix-ups, in which marshals are mistaken for terrorism suspects who share the same names, have gone on for years — just as they have for thousands of members of the traveling public."

WSJ: Weinstein Reversed Again, This Time in NYC’s Suit Against Gun Makers. Mayor Bloomberg is unhappy, so I'm pleased.

CONFLICT AMONG THE NETROOTS: The Messianics vs. the Menopausals.

MICHAEL MOYNIHAN OFFERS A HISTORICAL CORRECTION to Jeremiah Wright:

I'm largely uninterested in this never-ending Jeremiah Wright controversy, and I'll leave the debunking of his nutty National Press Club rant to others in the blogosphere. But there is one minor point that deserves a correction. According to Wright, his "congregation stood in solidarity with the peasants in El Salvador and Nicaragua, while our government, through Ollie North and the Iran-Contra scandal, was supporting the Contras, who were killing the peasants and the Miskito Indians in those two countries."

I'm not sure I would be trumpeting my "solidarity" with the foul dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, but I suppose that's a matter of taste. It should be noted, though, that it was the Sandinista government that famously massacred truculent Miskito Indians, who then responded by fighting a prolonged guerilla war against the very government supported by liberation theologists like Wright.

Is anything Wright says true?

MORE ON THE rebounding cougar population. I've heard several reports of cougars in East Tennessee, but there's no official confirmation.

JUST WATCHED HILLARY ON O'REILLY, and what struck me most was how much both of them seemed to enjoy the interview. O'Reilly had it right -- they're both "polarizing figures," and they're both okay with that.

UPDATE: Reader Jody Green emails:

I watched the Bill and Hill show as well and what struck me was how tough she plans to be on those evil corporations. She will lower gas prices by taking the profits away from American Oil Companies???? How are old Chavez and Mugabe doing with those evil corporate profits they took away? Prices sure seem to be lower, eh?

Yeah.

ZIMBABWE UPDATE: Mugabe beaten in presidential vote, says government source. By so much they couldn't even fake it, I guess.

YESTERDAY'S POST on the motorcycle GPS unit produced several emails that I quoted, but today I got this from Marc "Armed Liberal" Danziger:

Glenn, we've got one - I got it because Tenacious G (my wife) rides really well, but navigates less well, and we found that the stress of trying to navigate on the fly on a motorcycle tends to degrade her riding skills - making her less safe.

I've used it on my motorcycle, and found it not to be overly distracting at all (plus it plays MP3's via Bluetooth).

Highly, highly recommended.

As long as we're talking gadgets, we also got one of these - a Spot Messenger (http://www.findmespot.com/Home.aspx). It uses GPS and satellite communications to allow you to send emails with a Google Maps link to a designated list of people saying "I'm OK" or "I need help" and it also will page the GEOS rescue center for you. Makes those long rides through cell-phone-less back country just a little more secure...

That looks like a very cool gadget.

JAMES TARANTO:

So, was Obama sincere? Did he spent 20 years as an intimate of Wright and a parishioner of his church without ever having an inkling that the guy is a wacko hatemonger?

If so, can you think of anything more terrifying than sending such a naïf to the White House while there's a war on?

Read the whole thing.

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE ON VOTER ID FRAUD: "Have Marty Lederman and Rick Hasen never heard of Mayor Richard 'the Boss' Daley?"

PROFOUND DESIRE NOT TO BE JUDGED.

LOUIS FARRAKHAN DIDN'T PUT CHAINS ON HIM: An interview with former Sudanese slave Simon Deng.

THE WEB IS FIFTEEN YEARS OLD TODAY. While still a fractious adolescent, it's showing some signs of maturity . . . .

CHOLESTEROL HELL.

REPORTING ON THE WISCONSIN LAW SCHOOL sex toy controversy.

UPDATE: Worth quoting: "The enlarged pictures are NSFW, but I guess if the women put them up, then it's not sexual harassment."

CONSTITUTIONAL PROBLEMS AT THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS? All I can say is that if they're being sued by Bob Long, they might as well surrender now.

OVER AT JOYSTIQ, a review of Grand Theft Auto IV.

FRED THOMPSON IS BACK ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL: For McCain.

EARL OFARI HUTCHINSON: Obama, Not Wright, Is Obama's Worst Enemy. "Finally, and worst of all, no matter how much he protests that Wright doesn't represent him or his thinking, the fact is he sat in his church for nearly two decades, called him a spiritual mentor and family confidant, appointed him to an advisory post in his campaign, and in his so-called race speech refused to disown his two decade experience and relationship with him. This instantly makes his Wright protest sound like the wail of a politician running scared, and who sees the long, arduous, time consuming and patient work he put into building up public trust in him as the nation's great political hope fast washing down the drain."

Related thoughts here: "You know who made this a racial thing? Not Sean Hannity. Not Fox News. Not Hillary Clinton. Barrack Obama made Jeremiah Wright a race thing. It was his big 'race speech' that transformed a singular black preacher into the living personification of the 'Black Community.'"

FLOYD ABRAMS: Foreign Law and the First Amendment. A bad combination.

SCIENCE LEADS YOU TO KILLING PEOPLE? If this quote is accurate, Ben Stein has completely lost it.

UPDATE: Related thoughts at ChicagoBoyz.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Steve Poling emails:

You cited Derb's quote by Ben Stein and suggest he's lost it. I'd like to offer a brief apology (in the Socratic sense).

In the last century, we saw several governments adopt the notion that they, the government, were ultimate. Mr. Stein accurately identifies one of them, risking Godwin's law. Meanwhile, Russian and Chinese governments were responsible for murdering millions of their citizens. The same century saw the Tuskegee experiment and other eugenics mischief under the banner of what Francis Schaeffer (franky's dad) termed "Sociological law." All these crimes were RATIONALIZED using science.

You'll see this common theme running throughout Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism." I disagree with Mr. Goldberg's thesis, finding the common thread true of both Communist and Fascist and American Progressive mischief is a rejection of transcendent absolutes. "If there are no absolutes, then the state is absolute," said Francis Schaeffer.

But the root problem has to do with human nature and Lord Acton's dictum, power tends to corrupt. Since the people running the gas chambers in Germany were philosophically naturalists who dressed in lab coats while spouting pseudo-science, I don't think Mr. Stein's curse lands upon true scientists, but at relativists who see nothing larger than their own personal grasp on power and no transcendent checks upon its exercise.

The American Constitution is as close as this world is likely to see. I see it as a legacy of Deist and Christian framers who looked outside government for absolutes to serve as checks upon government. However, since all text is subject to interpretation, that legacy is endangered by judicial activism... Sorry to have wandered so far afield. Francis Schaeffer made the same mistake when he contemplated these things immediately after the Roe v Wade decision.

However, the absolutes vs relativism question seems to lie underneath Mr. Stein's remarks. If just want to make him a straw man, and find an excuse to ignore everything else he says, you can frame his remarks as mere obscurantism. However, if you want to constructively engage the problems which have nettled this world for the last century or so, you might want to consider relativism's baleful influence on Western Culture.

Auschwitz was not conceived as science, nor was it impelled by science, or scientists. The Holocaust was not a scientific endeavor, but had its roots in the Nazis' unscientific loathing of the Jews. The Nazis did try to dress up that loathing in scientific dress, but that was a propaganda move, not science. (Indeed, Nazi science, for the most part, was dreadful science, made up by people to suit their preexisting beliefs without actual resort to the scientific method.) One can argue quite compellingly against moral relativism without engaging in raw intellectual dishonesty. Stein's approach, however, seems more worthy of a Michael Moore. And in this spirit, do read what Jay Manifold has to say at the ChicagoBoyz link above. And here's a somewhat related post from a while back.

MORE: Ed Morrissey comments: "I found a lot to recommend about Expelled, but this leaves me wondering if Ben Stein missed the point of his movie. Science does not lead to Dachau; ideology perverting science led to Dachau.. . . How could Stein say this without a hint of irony? The best themes in Expelled take Academia to task for the same destructive sin."

STILL MORE: In the comments at ChicagoBoyz, David Foster writes:

I’ve enjoyed a lot of Stein’s writing, and it saddens me to see him descending to this nuttiness.

“the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed”…surely Stein knows that the concentration camps were run by the SS, 99% of whom were not scientists. While it is true that the Nazis employed chemists for nefarious purposes, it is also true that the Nazis employed musicians to help hide from inmates the true purpose of the camps. Would Stein also assert that music is evil?

Good point, exposing just how cheap Stein's cheap shot was.

HEH: Berkeley College Republicans apply for same protest privileges as Code Pink.

Related: Military moms crash Code Pink dinner.

OOPS: Hillary blasts Bush for not stopping a project her husband approved.

VIDEO: A Top Gun weekend.

GAY PATRIOT REPORTS ON Pansy-Gate.

MILEAGE TEST: Diesel vs. Hybrid SUVs.

IN THE MAIL: David Runciman's Political Hypocrisy: The Mask of Power, from Hobbes to Orwell and Beyond. Seems timely. But then, the subject is evergreen. . . .

From the Gay Street viaduct.

OLIVER KAMM: "Even many supporters of his own Labour Party will be glad if London mayor Ken Livingstone loses Thursday's election - and gladder if he departs public life altogether."

STEVE GILL: Obama gets a do-over. I think he's taken real damage, though.

GAIL HERIOT: "If you have ever wondered why colleges and universities seem to march in lockstep on controversial issues like affirmative action, here is one reason: Overly politicized accrediting agencies often demand it."

She thinks the Education Department needs to rein in the American Bar Association. I don't really understand why the ABA is in the accreditation business to begin with. (Via The Volokh Conspiracy). Here's a question -- and it's a real question, because this isn't my area of the law. If, as it seems, the ABA is pressuring schools to violate the law in the name of diversity, why isn't it vulnerable to a civil-rights conspiracy claim? And couldn't such a claim be brought by students who are not admitted to schools of their choice because of affirmative action? Is this more of a stretch than some of the other civil rights claims that are brought in the context of admissions, etc.?

HE'S CERTAINLY RIGHT: Obama says rivals Clinton, McCain pandering on gas tax.

UPDATE: Tom Friedman:

Good for Barack Obama for resisting this shameful pandering.

But here’s what’s scary: our problem is so much worse than you think. We have no energy strategy. If you are going to use tax policy to shape energy strategy then you want to raise taxes on the things you want to discourage — gasoline consumption and gas-guzzling cars — and you want to lower taxes on the things you want to encourage — new, renewable energy technologies. We are doing just the opposite.

Read the whole thing.

CHINA WILL LOVE THIS: Ahead of Olympics, Congressman Pushes 'Global Online Freedom Act'.

IS IT A TREND? Another professor sues students, though at least this time it's not over course evaluations. Still seems unthinkable -- but, then, so did the idea of students suing professors, until recently.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse: "Suing students! It seems unthinkable. But this is the direction we head when free speech and academic freedom lose their grip on us."

AN INTERVIEW WITH LIBERTARIAN TRANSHUMANIST (though he doesn't like that word) philanthropist Peter Thiel.

AT IOWAHAWK, advice to the lovelorn.

WHILE EVERYONE WAS TALKING ABOUT JEREMIAH WRIGHT YESTERDAY, John McCain was unveiling his health care plan.

Megan McArdle was on the conference call and observes: "The plan's heart is mostly in the right place: break the link between employment and health care, make the plan revenue neutral (ish), change Medicare reimbursement so that we pay for results rather than procedures." But, she observes: "The senator is proposing one thing that I think is a terrible idea, pharmaceutical reimportation. Naturally, this is the part of his health care plan with the highest probability of passage."

THOUGHTS ON THE NEED TO increase oil supplies. But while some are taking the issue seriously, Congressional Democrats (and, as we can see from the item below, some Republicans) are not. I'd like to think that they're just down with the Malcolm Forbes plan, but I kind of doubt their motivations are that sophisticated.

YOUR CONGRESS HELPS MAINTAIN HIGH GAS PRICES:

In an interesting tussle, a virtually unnoticed clause was added almost at the least moment to a US energy bill that bars the government, in particular the Department of Defense, from using Alberta crude because it is deemed unconventional and too dirty.

A provision in the US Carbon Neutral Government Act incorporated into the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 act effectively bars the US government from buying fuels that have greater life-cycle emissions than fuels produced from conventional petroleum sources.

The United States has defined Alberta oilsands as unconventional because the bitumen mined from the ground requires upgrading and refining as opposed to the traditional crude pumped from oil wells.

California Democrat Representative Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and Republican Tom Davis added the clause.

Thanks, guys. I'll remember you whenever I fill up. Some cynics might suspect a corrupt motive:

Wihbey underlines Saudi Arabia and Canada were direct competitors for the biggest customer: the US. David Kirsch, head of Oil Markets PFC Energy, says that “In the US mid-continent, the penetration of oilsands crude is deep, they are increasingly competing with the long haul crude from the Middle East. Until recently we saw a Saudi domination, but now it is becoming a Canadian affair.” And that’s why the Saudis are starting to play hardball, claimed Wihbey.

“They’re playing hardball ... then all of a sudden this legislation pops in, literally a month after these statements were made in November,” noted Wihbey.

But I'm sure it's just a sincere concern for the environment. I had missed this story, and I suspect most people did. Via Jerry Pournelle, who observes:

The easy way to make ethanol is to import sugar from Brazil and use that. Of course we don't and won't do that.

The easy way to bring oil prices down is to drill offshore and on the North Slope. Of course we don't do that.

The easy way to bring electricity prices down (you can make fertilizer with electricity) is to build nuclear power plants, expensive but cheap compared to wars. Of course we won't do that.

And why won't we?

UPDATE: Environmentalists are indefatigably trying to block this new source of energy:

Alberta's oilsands came under fire in Washington, D.C. yesterday, with environmentalists protesting the visit of deputy premier Ron Stevens and demanding a ban on "dirty oil" be enforced.

The National Resource Defense Council, which claims 1.3 million members across the U.S., [NOTE: I think they mean the Natural Resources Defense Council] bought an ad in the widely read Capitol Hill Roll Call newspaper, featuring a Maple Leaf oozing oil.

If we really do see seven-dollar gas by 2012 as some are predicting, we'll know who to blame. On the other hand, here's some good news:

Alberta expects a U.S. working group to classify the province´s oilsands fuel as a conventional resource to exempt it from tough new restrictions on imports, provincial envoy Gary Mar said Tuesday.

It certainly should.

LOSING WEIGHT with a treadmill desk. Some jobs already feel that way. . . .

COMMON GROUND: "We're all law professors: me, Glenn, Obama..."

HAPPENINGS AT BERKELEY: Muller scoops Leiter! With exclusive pic!

TIGERHAWK: "American society has made process as important as outcome, and it is sucking the energy out of us."

MICKEY KAUS keeps bringing up the John Edwards / Rielle Hunter story. Does he think there's a chance Edwards might get back in the race?

JEREMIAH WRIGHT: Once Obama's "spiritual adviser," and "mentor," now a guy he's barely met!

April 29, 2008

OUCH: Franken pays $70,000 in back taxes and penalties in 17 states. No rest-room groping charges yet, though, so I'm not sure he's ready for the U.S. Senate.

IT'S FINAL EXAMS AT THE LAW SCHOOL, and I'm already grading. Luckily, I only have papers -- no exams -- this semester. Grading papers is much less of a chore than grading exams. Students are studying, as you can see.

Click "read more" to see photos.

Read More ?

PROFESSOR THREATENS CIVIL RIGHTS LAWSUIT AGAINST STUDENTS, for criticizing her in course evaluations. That's gonna make people more willing to pony up the big-bucks Dartmouth tuition . . . .

HEY, MAYBE PHOTO ID REQUIREMENTS REALLY DO HURT MINORITY VOTERS: Reader Matt Szekeley sends this about the Texas Democratic Caucuses. Local Obama supporters get tripped up by the Texas Two-Step:

One bitter point of contention involved the verification process. Each participant needed to provide photo identification and a stamped voter card, proving that they’d cast a ballot in the Democratic primary. Attempting to follow the guidelines in the packet, Gonzalez pointed out that anyone in line without a stamped card needed to be marked “Provisional.” If the person in question supported Clinton, Gonzalez says she’d find herself bombarded with complaints from Clinton volunteers.

But it all evens out: "Perhaps because the caucus system worked so well for Obama at the statewide level, campaign reps don’t seem too eager to investigate local irregularities."

WELL, YES: "An international group of food scientists says countries should not use food crops to produce biofuels during a world food crisis. . . . Instead of using grains, the international group is calling on the U.S. and other countries to shift biofuels production to nonfood crops such as switchgrass."

But, actually, as some critics are trying to tar all biofuels as if they are made from corn, this is a point worth stressing. Crop-based biofuels are just votebuying from farmers, but others are worth pursuing.

UPDATE: In response to questions, switchgrass grows on marginal lands that aren't really suitable for food crops. And Bob Zubrin says it's possible to make enough ethanol and methanol to replace OPEC's output using only agricultural waste.

NEGATIVE COATTAILS: Obama looking like a down-ticket drag?

IF YOU'RE READING THIS, YOU PROBABLY NEED THESE: Exercises To Avoid Pain While At Your Computer.

UPDATE: David Chappell emails: "Actually I'm reading it on my phone on the DC metro."

I did say "probably."

OKAY, THIS GADGET LOOKS PRETTY COOL: But wouldn't it be a distraction, on a motorcycle?

UPDATE: Most readers say no: "Lots of riders are using GPS these days. It's a wonderful tool when exploring, and a lot easier to use on the fly than a paper map. It'll also show you where to find gas'food, and how to get back where you came from if you've just picked roads at random."

"BMW is a big fan, offering these as an accessory to their M/Cs. And as a former M/C rider, I can assure you having a Garmin read directions into your ear would be a lot less distracting than checking a paper map on your tank bag as you drive down a country lane..." You could come to a stop, you know.

"Personally, I use the Garmin StreetPilot 2610, but do not use the audio inputs to my helmet. I find the visual cues to be sufficient. I ride without the use the audio inputs which I find distracting. Still others have employed elaborate communication systems wherein they normally listen to either an iPod/MP3/Satellite radio but the navigation system has priority for 'turn-by-turn-navigation.' For the people that I ride with, the emplyment of the Garmin/music mix doesn't seem to be any more distracting to them while they're on a motorcycle than it is when they're in their cars, and none of them impress me as bad vehicle drivers. I think it really comes down to an individual case. Some of my friends seem not to be distracted by the additional input, I can't handle the 'distraction'."

RICK MORAN on the Obama press conference. "Obama has credibility issues with Wright as well as his other problem associates Ayers and indicted Chicago political fixer Tony Rezko. In each and every case, Obama has first downplayed his connections to these political hot potatoes. Wright was a 'crazy uncle.' Ayers, a 'neighbor.' Rezko, just 'one of thousands of contributors' to his campaign. Only when these associations have reached a critical political mass has Obama tried to put out the fire."

UPDATE: "I never had sexual relations with that pastor."

ANOTHER UPDATE: "Obama on Wright: He Really Means It This Time."

AMY ALKON NOTES a choice bit of idiocy.

ADVICE TO OBAMA SUPPORTERS, from Michael Silence: "Quit splitting hairs. You're only making the story drag on. Most of us will not be basing our votes on who the candidate's preacher is/was. We will, however, be basing our votes on a candidate's forthrightness and candor. And the latter has taken a beating lately."

LARRY KUDLOW: Bush Whiffs on the Dollar. But how much can Bush really do?

MORE DUMB DOOR-CRASHING BY POLICE:

Brooklyn Park police were looking for a meth lab, but they found a fish tank and the chemicals needed to maintain it.

And a few hours later, when the city sent a contractor to fix the door the police had smashed open Monday afternoon, it was obvious the city was trying to fix a mistake.

Read the whole thing. If it were me, I'd not only sue the police, but the "informant" who thought the smell of vinegar meant drugs.

BOLD ACTION on clean energy? Well, possibly.

RUNNING TO FEEL YOUNGER! Er, or something: "I'm now hobbling like an old man. Every part of my lower body hurts."

IN CASE YOU HAVEN'T VISITED IN A WHILE, Freeman Hunt is back to regular blogging.

MENACING THE IRANIAN MULLARCHY with Barbie, Harry Potter, and Spider Man.

Plus, leaving George Clooney in the erotic dust.

WAS THE JEREMIAH WRIGHT APPEARANCE arranged by the Clinton camp? Or not?

Barbara Reynolds is no relation.

UPDATE: I can't get away with anything: Why is Glenn Reynolds going out of his way to deny that he is related to Barbara Reynolds? Photos on blogs don't lie!

ERIC SCHEIE: "We hear a lot about 'choice,' and we tend to think of it as an individual thing. At least, I've always thought of it that way. I'd hate to think that choice is being redefined as a choice of herds."

OBAMA "OUTRAGED AND SADDENED" about Jeremiah Wright: "His comments were not only divisive ... but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate . . . . Whatever relationship I had with Reverend Wright has changed as a consequence of this."

Too little, too late, and too lawyerly ("whatever relationship I had"?). And as I said yesterday, I don't see that Wright has changed. People are just noticing. But is Obama just now noticing?

UPDATE: Jim Geraghty: "You buy that?"

ANOTHER UPDATE: TalkLeft: "Obama throws Wright under the bus."

And here's more on the "too lawyerly" front. And, from the comments: "Discussion of this issue might abate, and Obama's supporters might confuse that for successful management of the problem, but the reality is, the damage has been done and it can't be undone."

MORE: Somebody's polling Wright in North Carolina.

STILL MORE: Here's a transcript of Obama's remarks.

MORE STILL: Obama's statement was good enough for Andrew Sullivan: "It makes me want to see him succeed more than ever." (Via Political Wire).

THE NEW CAFE RULES STINK, according to AutoBlog: "A company that sells more large footprint vehicles would have a lower hurdle to jump. One that sells predominantly smaller cars would have to get better mileage. As a result a company like Porsche or Ferrari who sell relatively small sports cars would have to meet a higher standard than Ford or General Motors who sell more large trucks. The entire premise of this rule is absurd."

Plus, why the whole enterprise is dumb anyway: "The only saving grace here is that, overall, as fuel prices continue to climb, buyers are likely to migrate to more efficient vehicles regardless of the footprint." Indeed.

MORE PROTEST AGAINST FOX'S NEW SHOW, BAD DADS. "Bad Dads singles out fathers for shaming, when U.S. Census data shows that noncustodial fathers are more likely to pay their child support than noncustodial mothers." But women are the ones who watch TV and buy things from advertisers.

THERE'S NO BUSINESS like race business.

THE LATEST GRAND ROUNDS IS UP!

MORE ON THAT DNC AD from J.D. Johannes.

THIS MIGHT BECOME A CAMPAIGN ISSUE: "Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has requested nearly $2.3 billion in federal earmarks for 2009, almost three times the largest amount received by a single senator this year. The Democratic presidential candidate’s staggering request comes at a time when Congress remains engaged in a heated debate over spending federal dollars on parochial projects."

AMERICA'S MOST OVERRATED PRODUCT: The Bachelor's Degree?

As long as they're not saying "law degrees." I sell those.

MARY KATHARINE HAM: How Obama and McCain Keep Sister Souljah-ing the Wrong People.

ARMED CITIZEN SHOOTS ROBBER:

NASHVILLE, Tenn.- There was a deadly gunfight at a liquor store in Inglewood Saturday night. An armed robbery suspect was gunned down, after trying to rob the place. But it wasn't a police officer who took action.

None of the clerks in Sinkers Wine and Spirits had a gun to protect themselves, but they said they're thankful one of their customers did. . . . Baxter believes the customer and the suspects exchanged about ten gunshots. The would-be robbers tried to flee, but one of the men collapsed at the scene and died shortly after. Police said the citizen had a valid carry permit, and a right to protect himself.

"A citizen just like a police officer has the right to defend themselves or others, if they're in fear of death or serious bodily injury and that right extends to using deadly force," said Capt. David Imhof with Metro Police.

Indeed. Plus this lesson learned: "As for the workers at Sinkers who were unarmed at the time, they said they have plans to protect themselves in the future." (Via Truman Bean).

NOW YOU'RE TALKING: A MacBook Air with internal EVDO.

JONATHAN KAY: The Canadian Islamic Congress tries for a ceasefire — but they've already lost the war. "Come to think of it, it's fair to say that the Maclean's imbroglio has been one of the biggest shots in the arm to Canadian conservatives in general." You don't tug on Superman's cape.

IS BREATH-HOLDING HAZARDOUS TO YOUR BRAIN? Personally, I think that before deciding to descend to depths of more than 500 feet on a single breath, people must already have something wrong with their brains . . . .

FOLLOWING UP ON THIS WEEKEND'S GRILLBLOGGING, here are some grill recommendations and grilling tips from the folks at Popular Mechanics.

A DNC AD that shows U.S. soldiers being blown up. Remember when they were complaining about politicizing the war? What's more, the clip comes from Fahrenheit 9/11.

UPDATE: Questions about the networks' willingness to run this ad: "Are these the same television networks that put heavy restrictions on showing imagery from the attacks of 9/11 because they might be disturbing and (unstated) send the wrong message (e.g. retribution) to the American public?"

ANOTHER UPDATE: Happily (see the update to the post at top) they weren't actually blown up. It just looks that way.

MORE: "Inappropriate and unacceptable."

IN THE MAIL: Arianna Huffington's new book, with a lovely picture of Arianna on the cover. She seems to look better with every book, but my favorite is likely to remain Pigs at the Trough. She was ahead of the curve on that one.

ANOTHER INTERIOR SHOT, from the last Kay's Ice Cream shop, on Chapman Highway.

FABIUS MAXIMUS looks at worldwide food prices and has some useful observations, including these: "Panic by government and large corporations can easily exacerbate the hysteria. . . . Governments react to inflation not by tackling the monetary causes - which is painful - but by attempting to mute the price signal (price controls, export bans). This is self-defeating, as such measures have many bad effects."

A.C. KLEINHEIDER: Superdelegate Bredesen leaning toward Clinton?

UPDATE: Michael Silence observes: "Bredesen is a pragmatist. He'll go with Clinton."

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Friends of the earmark make themselves heard:

The hottest document on Capitol Hill is an anonymous six-page white paper that defends, of all things, earmarks -- those much-maligned home-state projects that lawmakers shoehorn into spending bills.

Doesn't it say a lot that they're afraid to make themselves heard, except . . . anyonymously?

A growing number of politicians have decided to just say no to earmarks. Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has vowed to veto any legislation that contains "pork-barrel spending." And several Democrats, including Rep. Henry Waxman (Calif.), have promised not to request earmarks anymore.

The trend worries many lobbyists (and some lawmakers), and they are beginning to fight back -- in other words, to lobby. Although a publicist initially told the Washington Post otherwise, the Ferguson Group acknowledges that it helped persuade three mayors whose cities it represents to praise earmarks in a Post op-ed Saturday.

But the widely read white paper -- "The Fairness of Congressional Earmarking in American Democracy" -- is the biggest counterattack so far. The only question: Who wrote it?

My guess was that it was written by some lapper-at-the-public-trough, and sure enough, it turns out I'm right.

UPDATE: Reader John Schwab makes an excellent point:

I think you should be clearer in your response to that white paper. it's a straw man - I don't know of anyone who would say that earmarks can serve no purpose whatsoever. It's out-of-control anonymous earmarks that must be eliminated, especially those that double back to benefit a congressman's family. Indeed, if earmark abuse is not addressed Congress may lose the power to use earmarks that make sense.

Don't let them re-frame the debate. If an earmark is such a good idea why won't they take credit for authoring it?

Heck, they won't even put their names on the memos defending them.

MEGAN MCARDLE ON PLAGIARISM:

Avoiding minor plagiarism is an occupational hazard of writing. There are only so many ways to say "Trichet told a press conference that monetary policy would continue to be tight for the rest of the year"; if you weren't at the press conference, you're going to end up using some close variant on a phrase that probably appeared in half the copy filed about it. To whom do you attribute it, if anyone?

This, however, is not minor, and also, not hard to avoid. I've very much enjoyed some of Joseph James Twitchell's work, and now it's clear why; he stole large chunks of it from some of my favorite writers, like Virginia Postrel and Grant McCracken.

Some lengthy thoughts of mine on plagiarism, from The Appearance of Impropriety, can be found here.

SO FIX 'EM: Deplorable conditions at Fort Bragg.

ATHEISM AND SCIENCE: A debate between David Berlinski and John Derbyshire.

HERE COME THOSE SANTA ANA WINDS AGAIN: Worries about more fires in California.

DEGREE-OLA: "The provost of West Virginia University told deans Sunday that he would resign because of his role in the improper awarding of a master’s degree to the governor’s daughter."

REVIEWING THE REVIEWERS: A roundup of book reviews from this weekend's newspapers.

JENNIFER RUBIN: McCain's soft offensive against Obama:

While Obama was fending off stories about his flag pin and his wife’s comment that she had never been proud of America, McCain was reveling in nostalgia over his family’s military service and the sacrifices he made in service of “a cause greater than [himself].”

While Obama deals with question after question about his spotlight-dwelling mentor Reverend Wright, McCain introduced us to his salt-of-the-earth English teacher who, McCain says, influenced his character and values. The implicit message is that the other guy has Wright’s invective and McCain has Mr. Ravenel's honor code.

As Obama suffered defeat in Pennsylvania, losing many rural areas by thirty points, where was McCain? In Inez, Kentucky, extolling the virtues of coal miners, and discussing Obama’s “bitter” comments in front of a cheering crowd heavy with religious, gun owners.

The tours may be the best solution for the dilemma that plagues the McCain campaign: they desperately want to refight the culture wars but have a candidate who doesn’t want to get his hands dirty. The tours provide him with venue after venue to make the arguments about character and values which will form a key portion of his campaign message.

And while it gets McCain plenty of local TV in key areas, it keeps his national-media profile low so as not to distract from the Democrats' self-inflicted wounds.

WHERE THE BOSTON GLOBE SEES Hillary Strangelove, I see someone who just might be the most uncompromising wartime President in U.S. history. And the L.A. Times wonders if the Globe really means it: "If Clinton ends up the Democratic nominee, will the leading journalistic voice in one of the nation's most liberal states endorse Republican John McCain?" That's looking more possible, so let's keep an eye on this question. It'll certainly be awkward for them . . . .

THOUGHTS ON THE FLAG PIN: "If John McCain wore a confederate flag lapel pin, very few of these people would be saying 'it's just a lapel pin.'"

GEE, I WONDER WHY? Obama dread turns to glee for the GOP.

I GUESS IT'S A GOOD THING IT WAS BLOWN UP, THEN: Syrian site could have produced fuel for 2 weapons.

JOHN FUND ON THE SUPREME COURT AND VOTER FRAUD: We had a podcast interview with Fund on this topic a while back; it's here.

HEH. The biter, bit. "It seems that white feminists and Leftists are a big bunch of racists, too. . . . White Privilege was to blame… No wonder Amanda Marcotte thinks Free Will is overrated." Yeah, I linked to Goldstein on the general topic, but this was worth a link of its own.

April 28, 2008

ADVICE TO REV. JEREMIAH WRIGHT:

And yes, this is a real church sign; I took this picture on Highway 30 between Athens and Dayton back in 2004.

UPDATE: A big Wright coverage roundup from Tom Maguire.

JOE KATZMAN: Straining Belief: The Obama Campaign and Michelle's UCLA Speech.

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, famous scientists would be punished for daring to dissent from politico-religious orthodoxy. And they were right!

AT TALKLEFT, A REZKO UPDATE: "A former associate of Tony Rezko's testified at his trial today that Rezko told him U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald would be replaced and the investigation into his conduct would end. . . . The Sun Times also reports that the Judge and lawyers have been working hard to keep Barack Obama's name from surfacing in the trial." The good news for Obama: Jeremiah Wright is diverting all the attention to himself, and away from Rezko!

WHEN RADICAL MUSLIMS become moderate.

WELCOME TO the party, Andrew.

BEING PRESIDENT: Not all it's quacked up to be.

WELL, I DO TRY. It's nice to see some law professors notice, and even point out that this isn't as easy as it looks.

TAKING "VIRAL MARKETING" A BIT TOO LITERALLY: I've been getting emails from all sorts of people about a site called "Reunion.com." Turns out they didn't send them. Reunion.com did, after perusing their address books:

As part of the process, she submitted her name, gender, e-mail address, birth date and ZIP Code.

Then Schmidt came to a page saying that "we'll find your friends and family who are already members and also automatically invite any nonmembers to join (it's free!)." It instructed her to enter the password for her Yahoo e-mail account.

"I thought I was just signing up to read my friend's message," Schmidt said. "At no time did I think I was authorizing them to access my online address book."

Within minutes, though, she started getting e-mails from friends and colleagues asking why she was searching for them on Reunion.com.

As the day progressed, Schmidt realized that every one of the roughly 250 personal and professional contacts in her online address book had received an e-mail, ostensibly from her, saying that she was searching for them and encouraging them to join her at Reunion.com.

"I had to send an e-mail to everyone apologizing for what happened," she said.

Sounds quite cheesy. I don't respond to any of these social-network invitations, but I'm certainly glad I didn't respond to this one.

RAND SIMBERG: "What the Clintons did for feminism, could Obama do for race relations?"

UPDATE: Obama's damage-control efforts seem too little, too late. "The Illinois senator spoke at a hastily arranged press conference on the airport tarmac in Wilmington, N.C., as media traveling with him were about to board his campaign plane. Airplane engines roared in the background and a plane taking off interrupted the brief media availability, which lasted less than six minutes and permitted only three questions."

EMINENT DOMAIN: Poor, Minorities Hardest Hit.

JEFF GOLDSTEIN: "The time has come to point out certain of the less than charming rhetorical ploys being clumsily attempted by my critics."

KEEPING YOUNG with nanotechnology.

BOB ZUBRIN corrects Hugo Chavez's math.

WOULD YOU RATHER HAVE 10% of a watermelon, or 90% of a grape? Depends in part on which you like, and which you're allergic to . . .

VIDEO: Michael Yon on Fox News, talking about his book, and the situation in Iraq.

OUCH: "Print circulation continues on its steep downward slide, the Audit Bureau of Circulations revealed this morning in releasing the latest numbers for some of the country's largest dailies in the six-month period ending March 31, 2008. When a full analysis appears it is expected to find, according to sources, the biggest dip yet, about 3.5% daily and 4.5 for Sunday. . . . The New York Times lost more than 150,000 copies on Sunday. Circulation on that day fell a whopping 9.2% to 1,476,400. The paper's daily circulation declined 3.8% to 1,077,256."

Circulation at the WSJ, meanwhile, is up. USA Today, too. What could be the difference?

HILLARY TALKS TRADE: Ed Cone posts bootleg audio from her closed-to-the-press briefing. Among other things, she endorses McCain's "gas tax holiday."

DANA MILBANK ON JEREMIAH WRIGHT: For Obama, the Voice of Doom? "Speaking before an audience that included Marion Barry, Cornel West, Malik Zulu Shabazz of the New Black Panther Party and Nation of Islam official Jamil Muhammad, Wright praised Louis Farrakhan, defended the view that Zionism is racism, accused the United States of terrorism, repeated his view that the government created the AIDS virus to cause the genocide of racial minorities, stood by other past remarks ('God damn America') and held himself out as a spokesman for the black church in America." I don't see how this can help him.

UPDATE: Joe Klein: "I've been to dozens and dozens of African-American church services over the years, including the investiture of one of my friends as an AME minister two years ago, and I have very rarely, if ever, heard the kind of rants that are part of Reverend Wright's canon. . . . Wright's purpose now seems quite clear: to aggrandize himself--the guy is going to be a go-to mainstream media source for racial extremist spew, the next iteration of Al Sharpton--and destroy Barack Obama." Yeah, if Wright's not trying to sabotage Obama's candidacy, what is he doing?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Some useful background here. Doesn't today's speech mean that Bill Moyers wasted his time and reputation in trying to walk Wright back from the brink?

MORE: Ouch: "Frankly, it’s as selfish of a move as we've seen in some time. Imagine, for example, if Norman Hsu or Vicki Iseman were doing publicity tours right now."

STILL MORE: Ron Coleman says the chickens are coming home to roost. And here's more from The Telegraph.

MORE STILL: Andrew Sullivan finally catches on: "But what he said today extemporaneously, the way in which he said it, the unrepentant manner in which he reiterated some of his most absurd and offensive views, his attempt to equate everything he believes with the black church as a whole, and his open public embrace of Farrakhan and hostility to the existence of Israel Zionism, make any further defense of him impossible. This was a calculated, ugly, repulsive, vile display of arrogance, egotism, and self-regard. This is an outright attack on the stated beliefs and policies and values of Barack Obama in a secular setting."

Yes, Wright's views certainly contradict Obama's stated beliefs, policies, and values. Andrew adds: "Obama needs not just to distance himself from Wright's views; he needs to disown him at this point. Wright himself, it seems to me, has become part of what Obama is fighting against." Become? I don't see that Wright has changed. People have just noticed. And if this is what Obama is fighting against, then . . . where's the fighting against part?

FINALLY: Eric Scheie on Pastor Wright's fantasy world of hyperbole. Some of that hyperbole is deflated by this comment from The Volokh Conspiracy:

"Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy. He did not put me in chains. He did not put me in slavery. And he didn't make me this color."

Nobody put Wright in chains.
Nobody put Wright in slavery.
Wright's color is due to his Negroid and Caucasian genes.

People can be so literal. Or is the whole thing being cleverly staged to give Obama the all-time greatest Sister Souljah moment?

RANDY NEAL NOTES A BIT FROM OBAMA'S FOX NEWS INTERVIEW, and observes:

Free markets work, and are more efficient. It's about time serious Democrats acknowledged this and started bringing the conversation back from the far-left fringe into the mainstream center with the DLC and the Blue Dogs where the business of America is business.

Only I'm not as sure as Michael Silence is that he's serious . . . .

JAMES TARANTO: "Democratic front-runner Barack Obama was supposed to unite the country, overcoming racial and even partisan division. How's that working out?"

OMAR FADHIL: Are Sadr and al-Qaeda Teaming Up in Iraq? "Reports of serious negotiations taking place between Sadr's movement and al-Qaeda were followed by suspiciously coordinated threats from both groups."

WHY GENERATION Y IS BROKE: "No one had ever taught me to make a budget or balance a checkbook."

They taught me that in High School, by which point I had already learned it at home. The Insta-Daughter, meanwhile, had already learned it from The Sims before I even tried to teach her.

SYRIANA: Noah Pollak isn't optimistic about the prospect of flipping Syria.

BETTING MORE THAN IT SEEMS ON THE KINDLE? Amazon is touting on its main page that the Kindle is now shipping right away, after months of being backordered because of insufficient production to meet demand. And they're even publicizing their letter to shareholders which is pretty much all about the Kindle. Seems like Jeff Bezos has big plans for going all-electronic, and not just in some hazy might-happen future.

MY FIRST SIGHTING of a SmartCar in the wild. Cute and little, but I think a Jetta TDI would be more practical, and I think they even get better mileage.

UPDATE: Various readers point out that the SmartCar is both (much) cheaper and (much) easier to park in an urban setting than the Jetta. Fair points.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More on whether the SmartCar is a good deal, here.

It's not especially inexpensive -- $11,590 for the base Pure coupe -- $13,590 for the "loaded" Passion coupe (and $16,590 for the convertible). At least, not relative to what else you can buy for that money -- for example, a Chevy Aveo ($10,235), Toyota Yaris ($12,225), Kia Spectra ($12,895), or Hyundai Accent ($12,925).

And those are subcompact sedans; they can carry four people. The so-called Smart car is a hypercompact two-seater. If you need room for even three people, you'll need to buy another car. How smart is that, exactly?

But it gets great gas mileage -- right?

Actually, not that great. EPA rates the Smart car at 33 mpg city and 40 mpg on the highway. That's not bad. Then again, a Toyota Yaris (with four doors and room for four people, remember) gets 29 city, 36 highway. So the "smart" car gets exactly 4 mpg better mileage in town and on the highway. Big whoop. And unlike traditional subcompacts, which can be driven pretty much anywhere, the Smart car is only usable as an in-city commuter.

But you'll be noticed, and for some that's enough.

HAROLD FORD, JR. gets married.

We interviewed him a couple of years ago. Nice guy.

WRIGHT IS wrong on Sudan. Among many other things.

HEH: "If Hillary picks the person who saved her campaign then her press secretary will be Rush Limbaugh."

BILL BRADLEY: Obama, Clinton, McCain and the ‘Wright Stuff’.

AUSTIN BAY ON Mexico's revolution on our border. Judging from Austin's take, it seems that Mexican President Felipe Calderon deserves more credit than he's getting from Americans on either the left or the right.

SCALZI OFFERS HEADLINE-WRITER SNARK:

“The Poor Suffer the Most”

Used, for example, in this news header today in a story about food shortages: “As a brutal convergence of events hits an unprepared global market, and grain prices go sky high, the world’s poor suffer most.”

Really? The poor suffering the most? It’s hard to imagine. Because, you know, usually when there’s a major global crisis of any sort, it’s the poor sitting there on the sidelines, going whew, dodged that bullet.

Indeed. But it's not all beer and skittles for the rich, as evidenced by "The Great Davos Lobster Bisque Inconvenience of ‘04." Some still shudder at the memory.

OKAY, I THINK THAT JEREMIAH WRIGHT MUST BE TRYING TO SABOTAGE OBAMA'S CANDIDACY: How else to explain yammering on about black brains vs. white brains. Echoing The Bell Curve?

Then there's this bit:

"Barack HUSSEIN Obama," he said, emphasizing the Illinois senator's middle name dramatically, "Barack HUSSEIN Obama, Barack HUSSEIN Obama. There are Arabic-speaking Christians, there Arabic-speaking Jews, Arabic-speaking Muslims and Arabic-speaking atheists. Arabic is a language, it is not a religion. Stop trying to scare folks by giving them this Arabic name like it's some disease."

Uh huh. That'll help in Indiana.

MORE: Tom Maguire: "I would have guessed that clapping on the downbeat was a social construct, but I am not as well educated as Jeremiah Wright. That said, I am trying to imagine the reaction if a white figure announced that black brains were different."

SOMETHING OF A GAFFE, I'D SAY: Hillary compares outsourcing to the Holocaust. Well, kind of, anyway.

JEFF GOLDSTEIN on the colonialization of Kong.

FROM TOM MAGUIRE: More Obama-Ayers fact-checking.

PRIUS PLUG-IN CONVERSION KITS, now selling for around $10,000. Not likely they'll pay for themselves in gas savings, but cool nonetheless.

IN THE MAIL: A G.K. Chesterton anthology, Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that Led to Nazism and World War II. A collection of essays, including one on a particular breed of pacifist that Chesterton saw as new in the 20th Century: "He does not so much believe in his own conscience as disbelieve in the common conscience which is the soul of any society. His hatred for patriotism is very much plainer than his love for peace."

ANOTHER CAMPUS PIC: The Law School patio.

MICHAEL YON'S MOMENT OF TRUTH IN IRAQ gets a review in the New York Sun. It's called "wonderful." Ask for it in bookstores.

TIGERHAWK: Asymmetrical outrage.

SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS Indiana's voter ID law: "The Supreme Court has ruled that states can require voters to produce photo identification without violating their constitutional rights." Seems reasonable to me.

JOSH TREVINO ON regulating foreign investment.

REIHAN SALAM: Hillary shows McCain how to beat Obama.

THE EXAMINER: When truth becomes "inappropriate" for campaign debate.

MICHAEL CHABON'S The Yiddish Policemen's Union has won a Nebula Award. A lot of people seem to have liked it more than I did -- I thought it was just okay.

I'D BE SHOCKED, but by now this really isn't shocking:

The UN has covered up claims that its troops in Democratic Republic of Congo gave arms to militias and smuggled gold and ivory, the BBC has learned. . . . These are not the only allegations to have been brought against peacekeepers in DR Congo.

In December 2006, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said Moroccan troops had been involved in widespread sexual abuse.

"There have been crimes such as rape, paedophilia and human trafficking," he said, shortly before leaving office.

But since there's no anti-American angle, it won't be much of a story.

DALE AMON: Born a hundred million years too soon.

PLASTIC SURGERY: Don't overdo. My theory is that certain celebrities and socialites are around so many people who've had lots of work done that what looks weird to everyone else just looks normal to them.

SCALIA ON 60 MINUTES: A roundup.

MICKEY KAUS gives Obama's Fox appearance yesterday a good review: "McCain will have trouble beating the Obama who showed up on Fox News Sunday, giving a highly effective interview to Chris Wallace."

On the other hand, he has this advice: "It would be a huge help in combatting the 'arrogance' meme, however, if Obama would stop citing the world-historical greatness of his own speeches as if he were his own personal Chris Matthews."

BRUCE BAWER: Motivated by fear and multiculturalism, too many Westerners are acquiescing to creeping sharia.

April 27, 2008

TAXES AND THE "two-income trap."

POLITICO: OBAMA STARS in Mississippi attack ad. "The ads are a mark of how difficult, with the nomination apparently within his grasp, Obama will find it to stay above or outside the traditional, bitter partisan divisions he so often deplores." Well, yeah. It's hard to stay above the fray when you're, you know, in it.

OUCH: "He’s looking less like Kennedy, and more like Steve Urkel."

GRILLBLOGGING: Okay, I'm finally getting to following up on Kaliph's question about gas grills. The response was so overwhelming that I still haven't read it all, but here goes. First, reader Bill Faith wants to know who made my gas grill that's lasted four years. It was a Kenmore Premium from Sears. Still works fine, though the little electric lighter is getting kinda iffy.

Moved to "extended entry" because it's so long. Click "read more" to read it!

Read More ?

PAMELA BONE has died.

MARK STEYN EXPLAINS IT ALL: "In a scrupulously politically correct age, it's not offensive to organize a 'Kill the police!' demo or to preach that the government invented Aids in order to perpetrate an African-American genocide. You can pull that stuff and still be part of respectable society, hanging out with presidential candidates and whatnot. What's grotesquely offensive is the chap who's insensitive enough to point out such statements and associations." Yeah, well, he's ruining the deal for everyone.

NATURALLY, THE ROBOPHOBES ARE TRYING TO MAKE HAY OUT OF THIS: Robot lawnmower safety recall.

WE'RE SEEING MORE OF THIS KIND OF THING: Single Mother Gets RIAA Suit Dismissed, Sues Them Right Back. And I suspect they're vulnerable.

THIS SOUNDS LIKE GOOD NEWS: Colombia and the United States announce biofuel cooperation agreement.

SALENA ZITO: Obama's big disconnect. "This nation has a history of looking closely at its candidates and taking their measure before they vote for them. It is a process that Obama shuns and rival Hillary Clinton thrives on -- and therein lies the problem for Democrats."

HOLOGRAPHIC STORAGE becomes a commercial reality. This sounds very cool. When the price drops, which probably won't take all that long, I'll be interested.

NICK GILLESPIE AND MATT WELCH: How "Dallas" won the Cold War. But did the show really "demystify wealth production"?

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING: Well, reporting of sorts, anyway. I made a rare visit to Sam's Club today, and noticed that they seemed to have plenty of giant bags of basmati rice, though there was a sign noting that purchasers were limited in how many they could buy (no more than 4 bags to a customer). Since one of those bags would probably supply my household's rice needs for a year, the limit didn't seem too onerous, and probably more aimed at resellers than anything else.

On the other hand, there's this: Head for the hills!

GIVING A PASS TO FRANKLIN GRAHAM in Knox County Schools? On the other hand, my daughter's geography teacher spends most of his time telling her about the evils of western civilization, with special emphasis on George W. Bush and conservative Christians. So maybe they're just too distracted from, you know, actual teaching in general.

JACK LAIL: "I think we're in what we will be remembered as a 'golden age' of Web news."

SARKOZY BREATHES NEW LIFE into Atlanticism. "It was hugely symbolic that his first two state visits were to America and Britain, doing nothing to dispel German nervousness at a potential weakening of the axis between Paris and Berlin." But, as always with politics, especially the French variety, there are actions, and there are words.

MICHAEL HIRSH: "Maybe it's time for the North to secede from the Union."

Jeez, they used to at least wait until after they lost the election to start this talk.

AUSTIN BAY on North Korea and Syria.

"WE'RE NOT QUITTERS:" Bill Clinton encourages Hillary to push on. "Mr. Clinton has been deeply involved in the campaign since the days after his wife's surprise third-place finish in the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses. With the Secret Service taking positions in and around campaign headquarters, he showed up for meetings, even bringing in bagels and chicken nuggets for the staff. He also brought in his own people, including former advisers Howard Paster and Steve Richetti and his foundation's chief of staff, Laura Graham." I've been wondering what that foundation did. (Via Josh Marshall).

MIKE RAPPAPORT: "I wonder what percentage of the Jewish vote Obama will get. My guess is that it will be the lowest of a Democratic candidate in many years, if not in several generations."

OBAMA ON FOX: Here's the transcript. (Via MyDD, where Jerome Armstrong observes: "Obama is trying to separate himself from the most strident parts of his base, and he does this pretty effectively throughout the interview." But read the whole thing.)

UPDATE: A more critical take at No Quarter. "The truly scary part is that Obama stands for, essentially, nothing. Obama stands for Obama." More discussion at TalkLeft.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reviews from the Rightosphere aren't much better: "I supported Roberts when I opposed him." Plus this: "He called Wright a 'legitimate' campaign issue, which will seem rather shocking to the New York Times, the McCain campaign, and others who have demanded an end to the North Carolina GOP’s television ad.. . . . Obama sounded a lot less convincing when it came to responding to the William Ayers controversy."

POSSIBLY: What if you could make fuel for your car in your backyard for less than you pay at the pump? Would you? Federal laws may interfere.

IN THE MAIL: Jonathan Rosen's The Life of the Skies. It's very well-blurbed.

THE OBAMA/AYERS CONNECTION is getting a workout from the pro-Hillary blogs. More here.

PEOPLE HAVE BEEN ASKING for more campus pics, so here's one.

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: Ex-Fugitive Put Up Homes to Spring Rezko. "The three homes belonging to former Iraqi Electricity Minister Aiham Alsammarae -- a dual U.S.-Iraqi citizen who broke out of a Baghdad jail in 2006 -- are part of a long list made public in Rezko's case Friday following a Sun-Times request. Six of the other individuals who pledged property to get Rezko out of the Metropolitan Correctional Center on April 18 are current or former state employees." Hmm. (Via Newsalert).

IT'S A FAR CRY FROM "OBAMA GIRL," but this viral video thing works both ways:

(Via Ann Althouse.)

ALT-ENERGY LOOKS A BIT MORE REAL: A reader sends a link to this solar sale at Amazon. My guess, though, is that it'll be disaster-prep people who are most interested.

ROGER KIMBALL: Grasping at Straws: The NY Times on McCain.

A LOST-AND-FOUND RECORDING of a Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey reunion.

BILL MOYERS pitching softballs. Or maybe whiffleballs. Whatever.

UPDATE: Gerard Van Der Leun emails: "Waffleballs."

AT CHICAGOBOYZ, a contest on eating cheap. The Insta-Wife's chicken soup yesterday, made from the leftover Insta-Chicken, worked out to about a dollar a head. People are beating that, though.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR AMERICA'S SWOLLEN PRISON POPULATION? Bill Stuntz says it's pretty much everyone: "The best answer is probably: everyone in a position of political or legal authority over the last thirty years. But I’m pretty sure one common answer—we have a huge, disproportionately black prison population primarily because of the policy choices made by conservative Republicans like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush—is wrong. The political right plainly contributed, and contributed a lot, to the generation-long run-up in our prison population. But the political left probably contributed even more."

Read the whole thing. Including this: "Criminal justice works badly when the voters whose preferences govern the system are not the voters who feel the effects of crime and punishment most directly."

HILLARY HAS OBAMA WHERE SHE WANTS HIM on the whole debate question, according to Ann Althouse.

THE TALIBAN SOLD OUT: For peanuts.

DAVID MOREL took his Nikon D300 with him to a University of Tennessee rugby game. He got these shots.