June 07, 2008

HE CAN SOLVE THIS PROBLEM, if he can get his followers to saw off a couple of heads. Or even look as if they might. . . .

DOES THIS SUGGEST AN OBAMA/WEBB TICKET? Obama points to Virginia as battleground.

FEMINISTS forgive Al Franken.

PHOTOGRAPHY STUFF: Monica Showalter emails:

Just wanted to tell you how much I love your beautiful photos of Knoxville and the environs. That one of the café looked so fascinating, no fashion photographer could have done such an interesting job. It’s a historical record, too, I would love to see you put them all in a book, I’d buy the first copy.

I love the diners, the streets, the storefronts – you are chronicling something really fresh and marvelous to my west coast eyes and I love looking at those photos. I didn’t even think such a world existed – the stuff is 1950s-ish, and yet it is modern and kind of hip. Hope you keep the photos coming!

Well, thanks. I've toyed with the idea of doing a book -- it wouldn't make much money, and it wouldn't do anything for my academic career, but it would be fun. We'll see. The photos I post here are to such a book as blogging is to writing a book: Ideas, and maybe usable bits here and there, but not anything like the finished product. I'd probably need a couple of hundred photos as good as my ten or twenty best right now. And, interestingly, a lot more people see the pics on the blog than would ever see them in a book. But I enjoy it. And yes, Knoxville is like that -- like "Austin without the hype," in one memorable turn of phrase.

I've gotten various other questions about photography. I'll do a post on that later.

LARRY JOHNSON isn't giving up: "I support Hillary Clinton for President. I believe she will be a stronger candidate. And if I had the tape I would put it out in a heartbeat. Getting the tape out now does one of two things–either it persuades Super Delegates that Barack is not electable or it gives the Obama campaign time to repair the damage."

EUGENE VOLOKH: ""I often hear people arguing that some speech is unprotected under current First Amendment law because it's 'hate speech,' or asking 'Is [X] free speech or is it hate speech?' That, it seems to me, is a mistake. 'Hate speech' is not a legal term of art under U.S. law, nor an exception from First Amendment protection. "

BRING IT ON: NASA Scientists Pioneer Method for Making Giant Lunar Telescopes:

Scientists working at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., have concocted an innovative recipe for giant telescope mirrors on the Moon. To make a mirror that dwarfs anything on Earth, just take a little bit of carbon, throw in some epoxy, and add lots of lunar dust.. . . . The capabilities of a 50-meter telescope on the Moon boggle the imagination, according to NASA. With a stable platform, and no atmosphere to absorb or blur starlight, the monster scope could record the spectra of extra solar terrestrial planets and detect atmospheric biomarkers such as ozone and methane. Two or more such telescopes spanning the surface of the Moon can work together to take direct images of Earth-like planets around nearby stars and look for brightness variations that come from oceans and continents. Among many other projects, it could make detailed observations of galaxies at various distances, to see how the universe evolved.

This sounds remote, but it's less so than when the idea for the Hubble telescope was first floated at the RAND corporation back in 1946. That's right, 1946. I'm reading Robert Zimmerman's history of the Hubble (which I'll be reviewing later) and learned that tidbit. Kinda cool.

EFFORTS TO PREPARE THE MEDIA BATTLESPACE:

The Left is very invested in both preemptively delegitimizing criticism of Obama and framing opponents as de facto bigots.

I can think of no better reason to vote against Obama than the prospect of an administration where any criticism of the President is treated as racism.

HANDLING FALSE CHARGES OF RAPE.

THE MARC RICH PARDON SCANDAL rears its head again. I was hoping for more change than this.

HEH: Futuristic Custom Car with a Built-In Cocktail Bar -- It Made Perfect Sense in 1962.

THE NEW WEEZER VIDEO.

UPDATE: Link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry!

FRED KAGAN:

For any voter trying to choose between the two candidates for commander in chief, there is no better test than this: When American strategy in a critical theater was up for grabs, John McCain proposed a highly unpopular and risky path, which he accurately predicted could lead to success. Barack Obama proposed a popular and politically safe route that would have led to an unnecessary and debilitating American defeat at the hands of al Qaeda.

The two men brought different backgrounds to the test, of course. In January 2007, McCain had been a senator for 10 years and had served in the military for 23 years. Obama had been a senator for 2 years and before that was a state legislator, lawyer, and community organizer. But neither presidential candidates nor the commander in chief gets to choose the tests that history brings. Once in office, the one elected must perform.

Indeed.

UPDATE: It's either a typo or a decade-dropping math error on Kagan's part, but McCain had been in the Senate for 20 years, not ten at the time. Of course, that simply reinforces Kagan's point about relative experience.

TAYLOR MARSH: Hillary Supporters Ask: ‘How’d She Lose to This Guy?’

BRAD FRIEDMAN: "My Own Votes, Four of Them, Were Flipped Yesterday Before My Very Eyes."

JOHN MCCAIN: Obama's Positions Are So Changey.

Changey?

HAVE YOU NO SHAME, SIR? "WTF is this, a Martin Cruz Smith novel?" Interesting discussion in the comments.

IN THE MAIL: Eric Flint's Grantville Gazette IV.

Fountain City, Tennessee.

SHANNON LOVE ON STEVE CHAPMAN AND IRAQ. "Over at Reason, Steve Chapman rather sneeringly suggests that we should have the people of Iraq vote on whether to continue our military presence in their country. I think this is a fantastic idea, because I know exactly how they will vote."

UPDATE: More thoughts from Dave Price, who looks at some Iraqi polls.

SHUTTLE plumage.

EARMARKS BY STATE: An interactive map from AP.

GREAT BRITAIN'S FREE SPEECH BREAKDOWN.

MORE ON CANADA'S "HUMAN RIGHTS" KANGAROO COURTS:

Section 7 of the B.C. Human Rights Code is not compatible with freedom of speech and expression in Canada, and should be struck down by a court, if not by the tribunal.

Plus this:

"I'm not happy to be here," said Toronto lawyer Julian Porter, who is representing Maclean's. "We're not entitled under the law the way it's structured to plead truth, fair comment, qualified privilege or intent or standards of journalism."

Porter said that in the Supreme Court of Canada, truth or fair comment is a defence, but that test doesn't apply with the human rights tribunal.

Human rights commissions and tribunals were set up decades ago to deal with discrimination over access of services in housing or employment.

At the start, opponents of such tribunals were what criminologist John Miller called "wing nuts, the white supremacists or fundamental Christians."

No one had much sympathy for them when they complained about the tribunals. Now that Maclean's is targeted, the debate has flowed into larger, broader issues of constitutional rights of freedom of expression, Miller said.

Stupid wingnuts. Then there are the charges of evidence tampering by investigators.

And a prediction:

Goodness knows what the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal will do with their hearing about Maclean's and Mark Steyn. Probably what they did with their 1997 case against North Vancouver columnist Doug Collins: Release the steam by calling them horrible people but not quite hateful enough to be convicted, then write in some judicial refinement for future use against less well-equipped defendants who have no powerful friends and can't afford counsel like Julian Porter and Roger McConchie.

Of course, the tribunal may not. They may go for broke, rely on the precedent subversive to free speech that's been handed down over the years by the Supreme Court of Canada and companion human rights commissions and convict Steyn and Maclean's of publishing something likely to expose Muslims to hatred and contempt.

But these are not silly people. Anti-free-speech, yes; silly, not at all. They have excellent survival skills, and knowing what a bollocks the week's proceedings would appear to a reasonable person, and how many reasonable persons know about it, they may well decide not to push their luck.

Their names and pictures should be widely published, along with those of the put-up complainants, as enemies of free speech and -- ironically enough -- human rights. They're commissars without, so far, a fully-functioning KGB. But it's not for lack of trying.

UPDATE: Canadians may be figuring things out.

MORE: "Canada's shame." A succinct and accurate summation.

LAWLESSNESS in Philadelphia. Hey, why should government officials follow the law? That might interfere with them doing what they want to do!

TELOMERES, TELOMERASE, and mitochondrial DNA.

I AM CORRECTED by Donald Sensing.

VITAMIN D UPDATE: Possibly cutting diabetes risk.

POWERING THE FUTURE with compressed air?

June 06, 2008

WELL, GOOD: Small businesses power through tough economy, stats show.

MARY KATHARINE HAM posts her farewell episode of HamNation over at Townhall.

POLITICO: Dems Yank Global Warming Bill. "Apparently three days of debate was enough for what many senators called 'the most important issue facing the planet.'"

NINA CAMIC OBSERVES D-DAY by blogging from Normandy.

DUDE, WHERE'S MY RECESSION? A followup post on the economy from Fabius Maximus.

YOU CAN SPOT A BUBBLE by irrational exuberance, and pronouncements that the usual rules no longer apply. With that in mind, note this:

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama dropped in on the Chicago 2016 Olympics rally on Friday and declared he is confident that he will be winding up his second term in the White House when Chicago hosts the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.

Such bravado about his own future is not typical of Obama, even in private.

Then there's this:

Barack Obama isn't really one of us. Not in the normal way, anyway. . . .

Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.

I'm just sayin'.

BRIAN WANG: Seeds of a new manufacturing revolution.

THIS WOULD BE VERY WELCOME IN MY FAMILY: "The misery of millions of hayfever sufferers could soon be eased by a vaccine which experts hope could provide a lifetime's relief from symptoms after only four injections."

SUPERIOR DELIVERY OF ANTI-H.I.V. DRUGS, using nanotechnology.

JAMES TARANTO ON "THE JERUSALEM KERFUFFLE." "Obama has made a lot of pronouncements about the Middle East that strike us as frighteningly naive, from his pledge to meet Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without precondition to his declaration that Hamas and Hezbollah have "legitimate grievances" and his promises to surrender in Iraq. His statements about Jerusalem, however, seem to reflect a welcome sophistication and realism."

D-DAY REPORTED BY TODAY'S MEDIA: US Army pinned down in bungled assault. Huge civilian casualties. Experts fear grave damage to the environment!

OBAMA denies Michelle video rumors.

UPDATE: Rand Simberg thinks this is a non-denial denial: "The headline of this story is that 'Obama denies a rumor,' but he doesn't really, at least from what I can tell from the reporting."

RECOMMENDED FATHER'S DAY GIFTS of an industrial and scientific variety. Or you could just get him a Lamborghini Countach.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: This sounds promising.

The Associated Press Managing Editors (APME) and some 25 daily papers have teamed up with AP's Washington bureau for an unusual joint project that investigates congressional earmarks.

The project, set to be unveiled this weekend, includes a four-story package produced by the AP and a congressional earmarks database that will be available to all AP members.

The package, centered on a 2,200-word story, includes content supplied by 25 daily newspapers that have been reporting on the earmarks of their local congressional delegations since April. Earmarks are those federal budget items procured by local representatives specifically for local entities.

Feel free to suggest that your local paper get involved.

HEH: Che's children tired of the use of revolutionary's image for corporate profit.

I don't know what they're talking about.

AMAZON IS DOWN. I can't reach it either.

BRUCE BAWER: Why We Need More Leaders Like Vaclav Havel.

CONTINUING PROBLEMS with Mississippi's medical examiner. "Mississippi medical examiner Dr. Steven Hayne has corrupted the state's criminal justice system. But he's also done plenty of damage to the state's tort system, particularly in the area of medical malpractice."

MEGAN MCARDLE: "McCain wants to shut down Amtrak. Liberals are predictibly (and understandably) outraged. I'm not sure, however, that this is such a terrible idea, even environmentally. The lines that actually run at a profit--those in the Virginia-Massachussetts corridor--would still be profitable, and presumably operated by some private company. The other lines are a mixed bag, environmentally; it isn't really good for the environment to run trains at low capacity. And the federal government, because of the EIS process, other procedural barriers, and a great deal of logrolling, has so far not succeeded in making sensible upgrades to the system. The Acela was announced in 1994, actually went live six years later despite the really rather minor infrastructure improvements required, and at lavish expense now gets passengers to Boston one half-hour quicker in slightly comfier seats."

We took the Acela from New York to Boston a few years ago; First Class was as cheap as flying on the shuttle, and much, much nicer. But we were the only ones in First Class for much of the trip.

MORE ON EVENTS AT U.C. Irvine.

A PASSION FOR MAYONNAISE: Thou shalt have no other condiments before me.

At least it's not ketchup-blogging.

REMEMBERING D-DAY.

FIGHTING GLOBAL WARMING with fake volcanoes and more.

IN THE MAIL: Valor's Trial, by Tanya Huff. I've heard good things about her vampire books, starting with Blood Price, but I haven't read them.

Harriman, Tennessee. He asked me to take his picture as I walked by, and made a point of removing the wrap from his knee. He wouldn't tell me his name, though: "I'm just a farmer." He said he lost the leg five years earlier, in an accident.

ME TOO: John McCain would like to see humans on Mars. Of course, somehow the Obama backers manage to make everything about Iraq: "So, to review: John McCain hates war, yet he wants to send a man to Mars, a planet which is named after... war." Heh.

GLOBAL WARMING, SOLVED: "New Zealand scientists claim to have developed a 'flatulence inoculation' aimed at cutting down on the massive amount of methane produced by its sheep and cows." (Via Blonde Sagacity, where skepticism is expressed).

ORIN KERR: Is the D.C. checkpoint plan unconstitutional?

CANADIAN KANGAROO COURT UPDATE: The Human Rights Jihad. Okay, it's more background than update, but it's important.

NEW YORK TIMES: 36 hours in Knoxville.

Several of the places they mention have recently been featured on InstaPundit. Here's Vagabondia, here's Bliss, and here's a scene from Market Square. Plus, Sequoyah Park.

JONATHAN MARTIN: Is there a way John McCain can win the presidency without giving another speech?

That's not the real question. The real question is whether McCain can win the presidency if he gives another speech like Tuesday's. Okay, it wasn't quite that bad a delivery, but it wasn't very good for a Presidential nominee.

FABIUS MAXIMUS IS CRITICAL, in a thoughtful enough way, of the "Dude, where's my recession?" line.

But I've already addressed the point two months ago. Are we in a recession? Possibly -- it's unknowable until the data come in. But that's always true, since calling a recession is a retrospective act, and the media coverage -- which is what I'm critiquing, remember -- is all couched in terms that suggest that the data clearly indicate that we're in a recession right now, or something more like the Great Depression, when that's not what the data we have indicate so far. Meanwhile, contrary to his assertion, my posts aren't just anecdotal, but point to data. As I've noted before, I can't call the economy better than experts -- who themselves can't call the economy very well -- but I can spot a media bulldozing operation when I see one, and I see one now.

That said, this is good advice: "Build savings. Be careful when starting new projects or switching jobs. Carefully watch the risk in their households’ balance sheets." But, then, it's always good advice, to be followed in good times and bad, regardless of what's on the news. If you rely on media reports to set your household financial strategy, you'll have the financial equivalent of bipolar disorder.

On the other hand -- and here's the really valuable part of his cautioning -- as I've noted before, the mere fact that the media are pushing a problem with bogus claims doesn't mean that there's not a real problem somewhere. It's easy to forget that, amid the fun of bursting their bubbles.

UPDATE: Well here's an unemployment jump in the latest figures. To 5.5%. If it establishes a trend that would be bad. Scroll past the copious gloomy adjectives and you get this, though: "The 5.5 percent rate is relatively moderate judged by historical standards. Yet, there was no question that employers last month sharply cut jobs in manufacturing, construction, retailing and professional and businesses services. Those losses swamped gains elsewhere, including in the education and health fields, government, and leisure and hospitality." What does it mean? I don't know. Neither do they -- but they'll tell you they do.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Chris Baldwin emails: "While the tag line is somewhat recent, it is disingenuous to claim that this is all about Q1 and Q2 data. We've been told that we're already *in* a recession for going on a full year now, when it is clearly nonsense. He's right when he says that we might be in a recession in Q2, but we weren't 10 months ago when all this doom mongering really kicked into high gear."

PAT TOOMEY: Don Young embodies what is wrong with the GOP:

Over his 35 years in Congress, Mr. Young made himself into the most powerful Republican on the House Transportation Committee. But instead of using his power to steer Republicans down a principled, conservative track, he helped derail the GOP train in 2006.

Mr. Young spends taxpayer money so wastefully he could make a liberal Democrat blush. As chairman of the Transportation Committee (from 2001 to 2007), Mr. Young was directly responsible for one of the biggest boondoggles of the Republican majority – the 2005 highway bill. With a price tag of $296 billion, the highway bill contained a record 6,371 pork projects.

One of those projects was the $223 million Bridge to Nowhere, inserted by Mr. Young. The notorious bridge was meant to connect the city of Ketchikan, Alaska – population 8,000 – to an airport on Gravina Island – population 50. Instead, it came to symbolize Republican excess, and helped cost the GOP its majority.

But the bridge isn't Mr. Young's only earmark to draw negative attention. It seems the veteran lawmaker inserted a $10 million earmark into the 2006 transportation bill for a road project in Florida.

Of course, Florida is not exactly next door to Alaska, so more than a few people have wondered why Mr. Young pushed to fund the pork-barrel project. Among those inquiring into the matter is the Justice Department, which is looking at the fact that a Florida real estate developer, Daniel J. Aronoff, who stands to benefit from the federal earmark, has raised some $40,000 for Mr. Young's campaign coffers.

Earmarks aren't just about waste, they're about corruption.

GAY-BASHING IN AMSTERDAM goes unnoticed in the United States.

HMM: The Case for Restricting the Charitable Deduction for Gifts to Universities with Excess Endowments.

BRENDAN LOY ON HILLARY AND OBAMA: Forgive and forget?

June 05, 2008

IS HILLARY THE SOLUTION to Obama's Appalachian problem?

SWEDEN: Paradise, or Purgatory?

ADVICE TO LARRY JOHNSON, from Robert George.

IS IT WRONG to use these superb optics for "vaguely obscene" purposes?

AT ABOVE THE LAW, more on the Harvard Law Review scandal.

ADVICE ON BACKING UP YOUR PHOTOS: Me, I just burn 'em to DVDs and keep a backup hard drive. But this is how real pros do it.

WHERE ARE THESE KIDS going to learn such things?

ANOTHER REVIEW of the Ford Escape hybrid.

A LOOK AT the future of longevity research.

DON'T PUT THEM IN SWIMSUITS, PLEASE! Barrwatch, with Special Guest Star Ralph Nader. Plus this: "Are there actually people who will vote in November 2008 on the matter of 'impeaching Bush'? And can they introduce me to their dealer?"

JAMES LILEKS: "I’m not saying it’s the be-all / end-all of ideological tests, but you can tell a lot about a person by their reaction to this ad." More of 'em here.

LOSE A NUKE, LOSE YOUR JOB: "Defense Secretary Robert Gates ousted the Air Force's top military and civilian leaders Thursday, holding them to account in a historic Pentagon shake-up after embarrassing nuclear mix-ups. Gates announced at a news conference that he had accepted the resignations of Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne - a highly unusual double firing." Seems fair. But we also need to clean things up down the line: "The report drew the stunning conclusion that the Air Force's nuclear standards have been in a long decline, 'a problem that has been identified but not effectively addressed for over a decade.'"

UPDATE: Background here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails:

I get the impression, from my military acquaintances, that the nuclear forces have been regarded by the rest of the armed services as the weird aunt in the attic nobody talks about. That kind of attitude tends to be hard on the morale of the "weird aunt", and bad morale leads to carelessness and other manifestations of bad performance.

For whatever it's worth.

We need to continue taking the nuclear deterrent seriously. I work at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and we've become a political football over the last few years. Bad morale, reduced performance .... yeah.

Indeed.

MORE: Further background, going beyond the nuke issue to many other Air Force turf battles, from Noah Shachtman.

STILL MORE: A reader emails:

I was an OIC (1st Lieutenant at Minot when I left) in charge of several branches of the 5 MMS (Munitions Maintenance Squadron) WSA (Weapons Storage Area) at Minot in the mid-eighties. That was back when SAC (Strategic Air Command) existed and controlled all of the nations ICBM and Heavy Bomber Nuke forces. Back then, SAC set the standard, DOD-wide, for excellence in Nuclear Accountability and Control...I personally went through many SAC IG, NSA, DNSA and other Nuclear Surety inspections when I was there, and they were absolutely gut-wrenching in their thoroughness...they were terrifying actually...and I am glad they were. Even minor clerical paper-work or simple procedural errors could cause a failed inspection for the entire base...resulting in the Wing Commander and many, if not most, officers in his direct chain of command being fired and removed from the base within 24 hrs of the inspection results being published...my point is that sometime after Clinton's reorganization of the USAF and the retirement of SAC...these exacting standards seem to have disappeared. Not blaming him, since much of this was on the recommendation of Bush the first's defense re-organization efforts, but when you remove the elite and professional status that an organization such as SAC had...well, this happens.

And here's a blog post from Former Spook that goes into some detail, too.

MY EARLIER POST on buying big items on Amazon produced an email shortly afterward from reader Scott Milner, who wrote:

Who knew that a simple post about Amazon's sale on fitness equipment would be such a boon to your readers?

A month ago my wife and I ordered a Whirlpool double oven from Best Buy to complete our kitchen renovation. Delivery was scheduled yesterday and, sure enough, the delivery guys showed up with the item. They were in and out in a flash. Unfortunately, the oven had endured some abuse at some point and so it arrived in an unusable condition. I called Best Buy and the only promise they could make was that a replacement would be on its way with an expected arrival date some four weeks from now. Not a huge deal except we'd already discarded the old oven and... we're listing the house for sale today!

I remembered your post regarding Amazon and large items/appliances so I logged in and found the identical item. A quick call to the vendor (their 1-800 number was listed on Amazon's site) and I was able to speak to an eminently helpful salesman. He had the item in stock and could guarantee delivery by Tuesday of next week. He also promised to physically check the item before it shipped to ensure that it was undamaged. The biggest surprise is that I can buy this oven, identical to the one I bought at Best Buy, free of sales tax and for more than $300 less than BB's price, shipping included.

It's not an ideal situation, having to show the house to potential buyers without having a working oven, but this independent wholesaler working in conjunction with a major online retailer has saved me hundreds of dollars and was virtually instantly able to remedy a huge headache AND help with the sale of my home.

Best Buy, as well as Lowe's and Home Depot, have, without fail, dropped the ball on every custom order item we have purchased through them in the last four months. My wife's new mantra is that we will not shop at those places for anything that we cannot carry out of the store that day. Amazon, by simply making the introductions between customers and vendors, will hand the big box stores their collective lunch... and I'll smile because they deserve it.

I followed up and asked him how it went a while later, and he replied:

The oven arrived yesterday in perfect condition. The delivery crew called the day before and gave me a delivery window of about an hour and a half (which beats the hell out the 4 hour or larger windows of most utilities and Best Buy's own delivery team by a long shot). The gentlemen were courteous, careful and even unpacked the oven and took the material away for disposal.

I'll say it again, I will not shop at Best Buy, Lowe's or Home Depot for anything that I cannot carry out of the store that day. Independent retailers who can provide the kind of service I received for the price I paid will eat the big guys' collective lunch.

Cool. Then I followed up several weeks later to see how it was going, and he replied: "Everything is working great! Thanks again for the inspiration to try Amazon." I wish I owned stock.

Meanwhile, reader Tom Ganley sends this report about buying tires on the Internet:

I recently bought a set of tires for my son's 2006 Mazda 3. I bought the tires from www.tirerack.com. They also have a nationwide network of recommended installers. I called the one closest to my house and had the tires shipped directly to them. When they came in (a couple of days) I took the car down and had them mounted, balanced and installed.

Bottom line, I saved $110, or about 20%.

Cons: By not buying from the installer, I didn't get free life of the tire balancing, flat repair, or rotation.

Pros: The biggest pro is the time saved by not having to call around and find the best prices and availability. I'm a compulsive bargain shopper and I've spent days doing this in the past, calling people, waiting for call backs, looking for better prices etc. It was a quick and painless process and I saved over a $100.

I've bought tires from The Tire Rack several times before and always had good luck. Plus, this puts pressure on local retailers to do a better job, benefiting even those who don't buy online.

THOUGHTS ON GENDER ROLES from Cassandra.

A REPORT FROM Book Expo America. Plus, guess which TV show has the richest fans?

ROLLING OUT THE NEW OFFICIAL Frank Sinatra site.

GOOD ADVICE: Pray less, work more, says Islamic preacher.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS on mass transit. "For most transit agencies in the United States, if they were to write a mission statement that is reflective of what they do, they would indicate that they exist for the purpose of serving their employees and vendors."

GOING ANALOG: Jules Crittenden is taking a break this summer. Good idea.

MCCAIN/LIEBERMAN?

DEFECTING DEMOCRATS? "TN Dems Chair's Dad Might Vote McCain -- Lifelong Democrat and former US Sen. Jim Sasser says he might consider voting for John McCain if FedEx CEO Fred Smith was given a place on the Cabinet. . . . What makes this particularly interesting is Sasser is the father of TN Democratic Party Chair Gray Sasser, who endorsed Barack Obama yesterday." Hmm. I'd be surprised if this happened, but who knows?

UPDATE: Michael Silence is skeptical.

MORE ECONOMICAL S.U.V.s on the way: "However, despite its full size stature, room for seven humans and a few cold drinks, the Flex doesn't attack your gas budget like Cookie Monster on a binge. Its 3.5L V6 engine gets a respectable 24 mpg on the highway, assisted by a high-tech six-speed automatic transmission. Down the road, when the Flex is available with a turbocharged direct injection Ecoboost option, its fuel economy should raise a bit more." You may not think that's a lot, but if every SUV in the country got 24 mpg on the highway, the difference would be huge.

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, it would mean the end of privacy. And they were right: "The report reveals that the IRS made 4.5 billion disclosures of tax return information to federal and state agencies."

CAN A CIVILIZATION SURVIVE with a leadership class that is ashamed of it?

DON SURBER: Democrats finally impeach the Clintons.

INVASION OF THE JELLYFISH: No, this is not a metaphor for Congress -- we're talking actual jellyfish. They wander: "The American comb jelly (Mnemiopsis leidyi), sometimes called the warty comb jelly, has been spreading to foreign habitats for 26 years. Native to the Atlantic Ocean, they first appeared in the Black Sea in 1982. They had stowed away in a ship’s ballast water, which is used for stabilization. When the water was dumped, the species eagerly took up residence in the area."

This picture is just plain scary, though. When I scuba-dive in jellyfish conditions I put anti-sting cream on my exposed hands and face. I don't think it would be up to handling this guy . . . .

DAVID FRUM ON being attacked by Rush Limbaugh.

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I still kinda like the sound of Reynoldistas, though, even if Dan Riehl didn't.

PUTIN HAS MADE SATIRIZING HIM ILLEGAL: He's also pretty much made it impossible, as he moves beyond parody . . . .

DID HILLARY LOSE because of sexism? More because of Bill, I'd say.

ALCOHOL REDUCES ARTHRITIS RISK: "People who drink alcohol are less prone to the sometimes crippling disease called rheumatoid arthritis compared with non-drinkers, according to a Scandinavian study published on Wednesday. People who had a moderate alcohol consumption were 40 and 45 percent less likely to develop rheumatoid arthritis compared with people who did not drink or drank only occasionally, it found. Among those who had a high consumption, the risk was reduced by 50 and 55 percent respectively."

IN THE MAIL: How Would God Vote?: Why the Bible Commands You to Be a Conservative. That's in Pundits 3:16, right?

Knoxville, Tennessee.

WELL, THE MONTH OF MAY CERTAINLY SEEMED CHILLY: But that's just weather, not climate.

MICKEY KAUS: "Arianna is on Jay Leno saying Sen. Chuck Hagel has 'consistently and eloquently been a major critic of the war.' Except, you know, when he voted for it...."

IT'S A QUAGMIRE: U.S. out of D.C. now!

D.C. police will seal off entire neighborhoods, set up checkpoints and kick out strangers under a new program that D.C. officials hope will help them rescue the city from its out-of-control violence.

Under an executive order expected to be announced today, police Chief Cathy L. Lanier will have the authority to designate “Neighborhood Safety Zones.” At least six officers will man cordons around those zones and demand identification from people coming in and out of them. Anyone who doesn’t live there, work there or have “legitimate reason” to be there will be sent away or face arrest, documents obtained by The Examiner show.

Nothing we can do will stop these people from committing senseless acts of violence. It's in their culture. The best thing we can do is to withdraw and leave them to each other. . . .

UPDATE: Related thoughts here. "Is this a fair application of the Anti-war argument that Iraqis are incapable of peaceful democracy? If not why?"

Plus this: "It's worth noting that DC has banned handguns and the violence is so bad that the police are going to apply some rather extreme methods to control it."

LOTS MORE new releases on Blu-Ray. I suppose the end of the format wars will accelerate that.

THE WAR ON PHOTOGRAPHY: Bruce Schneier addresses a subject I've covered before -- the harassment of people for taking pictures:

Since 9/11, there has been an increasing war on photography. Photographers have been harrassed, questioned, detained, arrested or worse, and declared to be unwelcome. We've been repeatedly told to watch out for photographers, especially suspicious ones. Clearly any terrorist is going to first photograph his target, so vigilance is required.

Except that it's nonsense. The 9/11 terrorists didn't photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. . . .

Given that real terrorists, and even wannabe terrorists, don't seem to photograph anything, why is it such pervasive conventional wisdom that terrorists photograph their targets? Why are our fears so great that we have no choice but to be suspicious of any photographer?

Because it's a movie-plot threat.

Read the whole thing. I've got some related thoughts on the subject here. And Schneier is absolutely right about this: "If you're harassed, it's almost certainly a law enforcement official, public or private, acting way beyond his authority. There's nothing in any post-9/11 law that restricts your right to photograph." Both overreaching security folks and grandstanding civil-liberties activists tend to blame the Patriot Act even when it doesn't apply, and for the same reasons: It's complex, poorly understood, and scary.

UPDATE: Check out this amusing video. Via Scott Kelby, who comments: "Fox 5 did a live interview at Union Station with Amtrak’s Chief Spokesman who is talking about how it’s not necessary to have a permit to shoot in Union Station, and while they’re talking, a security guard comes up and makes them stop taping, and says 'No photographs!' Priceless!"

Somebody needs to start suing these people. And publishing the names of the security guards. With their photos! I'd say that we also need legislation protecting people's right to photograph in public places, but it's not as if the actual law matters here. Maybe something awarding attorneys' fees so that the trial lawyers will send roaming teams of photographers out to test security guards' knowledge. . . .

MORE: Bill Hobbs fearlessly fights for freedom by flouting flagrantly foolish photography folderol.

WHEN BEING PROFESSIONAL means being PC.

ANOTHER HADITHA MARINE is vindicated.

THOUGHTS ON VIRGINITY AND MARRIAGE:

The bride said she was a virgin. When her new husband discovered that was a lie, he went to court to annul the marriage -- and a French judge agreed.

The ruling ending the Muslim couple's union has stunned France and raised concerns the country's much-cherished secular values are losing ground to religious traditions from its fast-growing immigrant communities.

Follow the link for Eugene Volokh's take. I think that if this is enforceable on an "intent of the parties" principle, then lots of other premarital understandings should have equal footing. On the other hand, if they don't have an equal footing, then I think this should be void as discriminatory on the basis of sex.

DOES WINE HELP YOU LIVE LONGER? Well, possibly:

A case for wine’s effect on longevity?

California wine makers tend to live very long lives. Here is a look at just a few of them:

Ernest Gallo (EJ Gallo Winery): March 18, 1909 to March 6, 2007

Robert Mondavi (Robert Mondavi Winery): June 18, 1913 to May 16, 2008

Anthony George Diener, Brother Timothy (The Christian Brothers): 1910 to Dec. 2, 2004

Andre Tchelistcheff (Beaulieu Vineyards): Dec. 7, 1901 to April 5, 1994

Louis J. Foppiano (Foppiano Vineyards): Nov. 25, 1911 to present

John Parducci (Parducci, McNab Ridge): January 22, 1918 to present

I don't think this supports any scientific conclusions. But why take chances?

MORE ON "HUMAN RIGHTS" IN CANADA: The Alice in Wonderland world of the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. "Bang! You're guilty simply because a 'protected' group, in this case Muslim Canadians, feels offended and is able to produce supposed 'experts' to say that the published material is of the sort that might lead to discrimination or hatred."

Plus, further thoughts from Andrew Coyne.

A MACHINE THAT CAN SELF-REPLICATE?

June 04, 2008

FAMILY BUSINESS: "U.S. Attorney Jim Letten announced this afternoon that 4th District Assessor Betty Jefferson, an elder sister of U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, has been indicted on a host of fraud-related charges by a federal grand jury. Also indicted were Jefferson's daughter, Angela Coleman, and her brother, the previously indicted Mose Jefferson."

PRESTON GRALLA: "If Google really wanted to deliver a knockout punch to Microsoft, it would integrate OpenOffice with Google Docs, and sell support for the combined suite to small businesses, medium-sized business, and large corporations. . . . Imagine if a version of it were available as a Web service from Google, combined with massive amounts of Google storage. Integrated with Google Docs, it would also allow online collaboration."

I like OpenOffice. And I use Google Docs for everything that doesn't need footnotes. If Google Docs supported footnotes, I'd use it for law review articles.

MORE ON THE Bakken oil formation.

MEGAN MCARDLE: "Even if you don't like Barack Obama, I think you should be happy that the country has, with really very little fuss, nominated a black man with a very good shot at the presidency."

Indeed.

UPDATE: TigerHawk agrees. Bill Quick not so much.

AN END TO POLITICAL DYNASTIES? Not so fast.

MICHELE CATALANO: "A new 'Wall of Shame' policy in Long Island makes one ask: are our drunk driving laws so ineffective that we have to resort to humilation as punishment and deterrent?" I suspect that the humiliation is an end, not a means.

MCCAIN CHALLENGES OBAMA TO TEN TOWNHALL DEBATES.

NEW YORK TIMES: Clinton to endorse Obama on Friday.

WELL, DUH: "Who should Obama choose as a running mate? Obviously, Colin Powell. He fixes Obama's national security deficit, strengthens the Republican/independent appeal, and completes Obama's narrative about post-partisanship." Plus, if you won't vote for an Obama/Powell ticket, you're twice as racist as if you wouldn't vote for Obama alone!

A NEW KIND OF ceramic bakeware.

THIS SEEMS LIKE OVERREACH, even for Canada's kangaroo-court "Human Rights" Commissions:

The entire blogosphere was put on trial during the second day of a B.C. Human Rights Tribunal hearing into an excerpt of a controversial book published in Maclean's.

Of course, since half the blogs in creation seem to have covert HRC investigators/provocateurs posting racist comments, maybe it's fair . . . . (emphasis added).

MORE ON REZKO, from Rick Moran: "While the governor and other top politicians in the state almost certainly should be worried about what Rezko might tell the prosecutor, no one can say for sure if Rezko would have anything of interest to spill about Barack Obama."

UPDATE: Mickey Kaus on "Fitzmas in reverse."

ANOTHER UPDATE: Jeralyn Merritt: "Second, as to Obama, this trial was not about him. There is not a shred of evidence to suggest any connection between him and the illegal activity charged in the case. The Government said so. Obama's name was barely mentioned at the trial. Rezko's case is important in the context of government corruption in Illinois."

MORE: Reader William Boggess emails:

I would kindly reinforce, as a resident of Illinois, that the Rezko trial is precisely an indictment of Illinois politics, and that Senator Obama is a direct product of that system. No more, no less. Republican or Democrat, at the state level, they've become intertwined, fighting over the spoils. There is a very specific reason that the second largest FBI office in the entire US is in Chicago. The level of corruption is to a point where it's considered part of the "normal cost of doing business", right down to garbage collection. It's that pervasive. And taxes are the legal side of the extortion racket.

You have NO idea.

Well, I have some idea.

19 YEARS AFTER THE TIANANMEN SQUARE MASSACRE: "In Sichuan, it turns to anger as parents demand to know why 6,898 schools collapsed during the quake while government buildings remained standing. As the nation mourns, it will begin to remember the deaths it has been forbidden to recall: not only the thousands who were slaughtered in 1989, but the tens of millions who died under Mao’s rule during the Anti-Rightist Campaign, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The government leaders know that despite their efforts to erase history, the wounds inflicted by past repression are festering. With each anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre it becomes clearer that behind the bravado, the party is as fearful as a deer caught in the headlights."

"AN AXE TO GRIND, AND PLENTY OF FURY TO TURN THE WHEEL." Jon Henke asks: "Why does the Right side of the blogosphere have less traffic, a smaller audience, than the Left side of the blogosphere?"

UPDATE: Various readers complain about Henke's reliance on Alexa.com ratings. That's a fair criticism, to a degree -- the numbers are based on the rather thin network of people who've downloaded the Alexa toolbar to their browsers. If even a few dozen InstaPundit readers added the Alexa toolbar it would probably produce a noticeable upswing in the rankings of InstaPundit and the blogs I link to.

Meanwhile, reader Arthur Krannawitter has a different theory: "Subtract gov. ... org. univ., etc., blog hits by public employees surfing on paid time with public equipment and the lefty blog numbers would decrease dramatically-- visit any govt., school, firehouse or other public office and witness this yourself - it's nomenclatura blogging endlessly to and about each other ... posit on your blog that this is true --- it's bored, nothing else to do, public employees who repeatedly hit left web sites all day long... private sector workers aren't allowed this unrestricted, free use of office internet facilities, that's why they listen to their own radios." Well, possibly. On the other hand, rightish and libertarian blogs are a breath of fresh air in public-sector areas. . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Bruce Bridges emails:

Well Jeez Glenn, I never heard of Alexa.

But as a loyal reader I thought I'd install the toolbar. Surprise, they don't have one for Safari. So that eliminates the vast majority of my web work since I find Safari a more stable browser.

Don't see how you can follow web traffic if you are ignoring a specific demographic like that.

Yeah, good point.

GUILTY: "Tony Rezko — the high-flying developer and fast-food magnate who was once a major campaign fund-raiser for Gov. Blagojevich and Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama and one of the governor’s closest advisers — is now a convicted felon. A federal jury in Chicago convicted Rezko this afternoon on 16 of 24 charges he faced in a political corruption trial that cast a harsh light on the Blagojevich administration. . . . Now, facing the prospect of prison time in the corruption case, as well as two additional criminal trials on unrelated charges, Rezko is under pressure to cooperate with the continuing investigations." (Via JWF).

MORE ON RESVERATROL: "Most striking was how the resveratrol, like calorie restriction, blocked the decline in heart function typically associated with aging, according to Tomas Prolla, a University of Wisconsin professor of genetics who helped lead the study. . . . In this study, mice were given relatively low doses compared to the earlier research, and still experienced important aging-related benefits, the researchers said." Actual study here.

And here's a related story.

A REVIEW OF THE NEW 2009 FORD ESCAPE HYBRID:

The Escape Hybrid still comes with a continuously variable transmission (CVT). Ford's engineers have eliminated the transmission's endlessly annoying, never-shifting whine; it finally works, feels and sounds like a standard autobox. Ford's hybrid team has also created a brake simulation module to convince Escape drivers there are normal, non-regenerative stoppers underfoot. Job done. Perhaps most importantly, the Escape's noise, vibration and harshness levels have been reduced significantly.

The review's still kinda lukewarm, though. And Ford's losing money on them.

HEH: "Is there anything quite like having 2,400 delegates from 162 Nations all jetting in to Bonn, Germany for a summit on--you guessed it--Climate Change?"

JIM LINDGREN IS TRYING TO DEBUNK Internet rumors about Michelle Obama. "Until today, the rumors have been too vague to be debunked, but they have now become specific enough that the currently most prominent version of the rumor could potentially be determined to be false."

BOINGBOING TV: Joel Johnson takes the military's combat translator gadget for a test run in Brooklyn.

GENDER DISCUSSIONS and Metafilter censorship?

HOW THE WORLD sees Obama's win.

Plus, they certainly like him here.

GETTING 73 MPG IN A PRODUCTION CAR: "A group of German motor journalists managed to get 3.2 l/100 km (73 mpg U.S.) in a Skoda Fabia TDI Greenline. The car had a 1.4 TDI (diesel) engine good for 80 HP. The thirty-six journalists (we're guessing not all of them at the same time) drove the Czech subcompact for 124 km (about 80 miles), using normal highways between Austria and Germany and never going below 60 km/h (40 mph). The only 'trick' they used was maintaining as constant a speed as possible."

DON'T MESS WITH ANGELINA JOLIE: "If anybody comes into my home and tries to hurt my kids, I've no problem shooting them."

THE FIVE TOP TOOLS, according to Toolmonger.

JOANNE JACOBS: "When did kindergarten teachers get so mean?"

IRAQ IN REAL TIME: Here's a very positive review of J.D. Johannes' Iraq documentary, Outside The Wire.

UPDATE: Ack! Link above was wrong before. Fixed now. And here's part two of the review.

RICK HILLS: Why I am an anti-intellectual. "Being anti-intellectual is not the same as being anti-intellect. My beef is with a particular social class -- the 'intelligentsia' -- and not with the practice of using one's intellect to reflect on experience. In my experience, intellectuals (as a class) are ideologically intolerant, easily offended by ordinary humor, and pretentious in their prejudices, which they disguise as universal truths." The comments are delightful, especially the two from Stuart Buck. (Via Volokh).

IF GPS GETS KNOCKED OUT, the government has a backup plan. "This year, the Department of Homeland Security decided that a 30-year-old navigation system used by mariners will be upgraded to back up GPS. The decision preserves the Long-Range Aids to Navigation (LORAN) network, which has been teetering on the verge of forced retirement since the 1980s, according to the Coast Guard’s Navigation Center."

IN THE MAIL: Robert Zimmerman's The Universe in a Mirror: The Saga of the Hubble Space Telescope and the Visionaries Who Built It.

MARC AMBINDER: Clinton supporters offer to help McCain.

Market Square, Knoxville, Tennessee.

UPDATE: Yes, it does have a slight Sex and the City vibe. That's why I posted it today.

ZIMBABWE UPDATE: "Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Zimbabweans — orphans and old people, the sick and the down and out — have lost access to food and other basic humanitarian assistance as their government has clamped down on international aid groups it says are backing the political opposition, relief agencies say. . . . Food distribution is not only a matter of life and death to recipients, but it’s a strategic political resource that the government deploys to promote its political agenda."

POLITICO: Exit polls show challenge for Obama: "On the night that Barack Obama clinched his party's nomination, one-third of Hillary Clinton's supporters in Montana and South Dakota said they would not vote for the presumptive Democratic nominee." Most people who feel this way will change their mind by November, but the election hangs on just how many constitute "most."

UPDATE: Link was wrong before. Fixed now. Sorry!

I'VE MENTIONED THE FLIP VIDEO CAMERA several times, but now here's a favorable review of an alternative, the Creative Vado Video Cam.

CANADA'S KANGAROO-COURT "HUMAN RIGHTS" PROCEEDINGS are getting bad reviews in the Canadian press:

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal is murdering its own reputation by putting on trial an offensive article published by Maclean's magazine two years ago.

Plus this:

Were they not inexorably entwined in the mock trial of Maclean's magazine and the attempt to limit legal expression of opinion in this country, the four legal amigos seated at the B. C. Human Rights Tribunal's table of complaints would almost be pitiable. Not pitiful. . . . proof has no relevance at this Tribunal; one may claim anything.

And this:

The writings of Canada's most talented journalist, Mark Steyn, went on trial in Vancouver on Monday, in a case designed to challenge freedom of the press. It is a show trial, under the arbitrary powers given to Canada's obscene "human rights" commissions, by Section 13 of our Human Rights Act.

I wrote "obscene" advisedly. A respondent who comes before Canada's "human rights" tribunals has none of the defences formerly guaranteed in common law. The truth is no defence, reasonable intention is no defence, nor material harmlessness, there are no rules of evidence, no precedents, nor case law of any kind. The commissars running the tribunals need have no legal training, exhibit none, and owe their appointments to networking among leftwing activists.

I wrote "show trial" advisedly, for there has been a 100 per cent conviction rate in cases brought to "human rights" tribunals under Section 13.

Funny, but there doesn't seem to be much connection between "human rights" and, you know, actual human rights.

JIM LINDGREN: "Given that Obama was wrong on the main foreign policy issue of his brief time in the Senate (whether the surge would improve the conditions in Iraq), I keep hoping that his obvious intelligence will lead him to recognize what is going on in Iraq and adjust his policies accordingly."

ON THE ECONOMY, it's the crippled vs. the lame. "The two candidates' problems start with the economy, which members of both parties agreed is the country's top issue. Neither man got even half the votes of his party's voters who worried most about the economy. Compounding their problems: McCain conceded months ago that the economy was not his strong point, while Obama has run weakest with Democratic voters who say they've been hurt by the troubled economy, a growing group."

ANN ALTHOUSE: "I went to bed last night thinking there's no way Barack Obama should pick Hillary Clinton as his running mate. But I woke up this morning, turned on the TV news to see a rerun of her speech from last night and thought: He must pick her!"