June 21, 2008

MICHELE CATALANO: Fast Times at Gloucester High. "At an age when most teens are making plans for college and careers, 17 teenagers from Gloucester had a very different plan for their lives; they wanted to become mothers. Not after college, not even after high school, but now, while they were still teenagers. Soon, the girls were appearing in the school nurse’s office for pregnancy tests. Instead of scared young girls frightened at the prospect of a positive test, the nurse was faced with teens who were high fiving each other at the news they were expecting."

UPDATE: Related thoughts from Rachel Lucas.

BEWARE: The Trojan Social Open-Source Drop-Down. Israel doesn't exist, but "Palestine" does.

BRIAN WANG HAS THOUGHTS on achieving a technological singularity without breakthroughs in nanotechnology and artificial intelligence, and suggests that we're already well on the way.

PHIL BOWERMASTER ON FEAR OF THE FUTURE: "The memeplexes which have grown out of our fear of the future -- pessimism, cynicism, fatalism, misanthropy -- seem to be gaining in influence. I wrote recently about longstanding debate between Paul Ehrlich, who is lauded for his consistently wrong predictions of catastrophe, and Julian Simon, who was essentially ignored in the face of his fact-based assessments of human progress and correct predictions of more of the same. Whether we're talking about Paul Ehrlich or Bill Joy or Al Gore, a doomsayer is a person with a serious point of view, someone who is to be respected. And whether we're talking about Julian Simon, Robin Hanson, or Ray Kurzweil, a doomslayer is a crackpot who needs to be taken down a peg."

Plus this: "If our fixation with disaster and intolerance of risk continue to grow at the same pace as our overall improvement of the world, the happiest era in the history of humanity might turn out to be the most miserable. (Arguably, we are experiencing something like that even today.)"

I'll just add that we're likely to be told to fear the wrong things -- those with an easy media hook or those that benefit clever interest groups -- rather than things that are in fact dangers that need to be addressed.

UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Rand Simberg: "Hey, how about if we save the earth by migrating into space?"

"GET OVER IT:" Sparks Fly at Black Caucus Meeting.

WHAT TO DRINK: How to mix a Corpse Reviver.

Of course, we know what that leads to.

THE CASE FOR DROPPING MILES-PER-GALLON in favor of gallons per mile.

THE AD THAT SCARED OBAMA into dropping public funding?

MICHAEL BARONE: The Facts in Iraq Are Changing. Read the whole thing, but especially this bit:

If George W. Bush was wrong about the surge from summer 2003 to January 2007, Barack Obama has been wrong about it from January 2007 to today. John McCain seems to have been right on it all along. When asked why he changed his position on an issue, John Maynard Keynes said: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" What say you, Sen. Obama?

Indeed.

SEVEN QUESTIONS, SEVEN ANSWERS, from the Space Business Forum.

JOHN MCCAIN, underdog.

BITES FROM THE APPLE: A roundup of Apple computer and iPhone news.

HEH: "Some people might be inclined to make fun of a grown candidate who's against an imperial presidency but needs a really Great Seal before he even gets the official nomination."

IF YOU DON'T VOTE FOR OBAMA, YOU'RE A RACIST. "OBAMA DROPS PRE-EMPTIVE RACE BOMB."

But how well is it working? Not everyone's buying it:

Make no mistake: the man who admits he looks like Urkel is sounding about as post-racial as the Rev. Al Sharpton. Or about as post-racial as someone who spent the last 20 years under the spiritual tutelage of the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Fr. Michael Pfleger. Someone with that background ought to have some humility when it comes to dealing the race card, but he has chosen it as his opening gambit.

Humility isn't his strong suit.

UPDATE: Juliette Ochieng comments:

This is just pathetic . . . . Most people couldn't care less about your name and your color, Senator Obama. They fear being led by you because you have no substantive legislative record, you're a chronic liar and, after explicitly stating that you choose your friends carefully, you have repeatedly and systematically made friends with people who hate this country.

You would "bridge the divide," Senator, by burning that bridge.

Ouch.

THIS IS BAD FOR THE COUNTRY: Poll: Military approval beats Congress's 71-12. "Gallup's annual update on confidence in institutions finds just 12% of Americans expressing confidence in Congress, the lowest of the 16 institutions tested this year, and the worst rating Gallup has measured for any institution in the 35-year history of this question." (Via JWF, who notes that the Pelosi era hasn't done much for Congress's approval ratings.)

THOUGHTS ON TIM RUSSERT'S HEART ATTACK, and sexism against men.

RICHARD EPSTEIN on the Boumediene decision. "This 5-4 decision was correct."

HEH: "As the story of Obama’s 'presidential' seal reminds us, few messiahs are modest men. Nevertheless, as kitsch goes, the design itself is not too bad. Nice typeface! I await his redesign of the uniforms of the White House guard with anticipation."

QUICK, REPORT HIM TO A KANGAROO COURT: Terror leader gets visa to speak in Canada.

MARK SHIELDS ON OBAMA'S CAMPAIGN-FINANCE FLIPFLOP:

It was a flip-flop of epic proportions. It was one that he could not rationalize or justify. His video was unconvincing. He looked like someone who was being kept as a hostage somewhere he was so absolutely unconvincing in it. It could not have passed a polygraph test.

Is it just me, or does it seem as if the press is beginning to think that all this hope-and-change talk may have just been a sham? Much more here.

UPDATE: Obama alienates the editors.

YOUSSEF IBRAHIM: "Radical Islam is in conflict with America — and neither Barack Obama nor anyone else will change that."

BILL STUNTZ ON secular universities and evangelical Christians.

IN THE MAIL: From Peter Schuck and James Q. Wilson: Understanding America: The Anatomy of an Exceptional Nation.

Knoxville, Tennessee. Downtown Farmer's Market.

RACHEL LUCAS ON THE IMPORTANCE of the unique hidden gusset.

MEGAN MCARDLE: "Can a Barack Obama administration sit by while this happens? The liberals who think it can have spent far too much time in the Bat Cave telling each other that justice will soon be restored to the universe. Seizing US officials and trying them for war crimes will be perceived by most of the American public as an act of war. An Obama administration that became complicit in this would find itself wistfully hoping that they could, perhaps someday, get their approval ratings up to those enjoyed in the later Dubya years."

A cynic would take a leaf from the Muslim terrorists: Saw a few heads off on the Internet, and all will be forgiven. It's not as if these people possess the courage of their convictions when the going gets tough; we've seen that demonstrated over and over again.

HADITHA: A mass character assassination.

ROGER KIMBALL ON sausages, enlightenment, and “critical thinking.”

WELL, THIS IS COMFORTING: "Manhattan prosecutors are investigating whether the leading concrete testing company in the New York area, which has been hired to measure and analyze the strength of the concrete poured at some of the biggest construction projects in the city, failed to do some tests and falsified others, officials involved in the inquiry said on Friday."

GOOD NEWS: Last Surge Brigade Readies to Return Home After Success in Iraq.

Could be time for the pivot!

THIS SEEMS LIKE GOOD NEWS: Three senior Mahdi Army commanders captured in Baghdad, Hillah. Bill Roggio has more at the link.

OBAMA TRIANGULATES ON FISA.

GOOGLEBOMB ATTACKS on John McCain.

RAND SIMBERG: "NASA's plans for the future look like the same plans that have made the agency a bureaucratic dinosaur."

THEOPHOBIA? "I think the data confirm my theory that most academics are not hostile to religion as such, but merely to those religious groups that they perceive (for the most part correctly) as politically conservative."

WELL, THERE'S A SURPRISE: Sharpton Lawyers Up in Tax Probe.

June 20, 2008

HMM: BofA-Scripted Bank Bailout Looks Awfully Similar to Dodd-Drafted Housing Bill.

ISN'T THIS A BIT PREMATURE? Obama already has own Presidential Seal.

It's that oozing sense of entitlement again.

UPDATE: Claiming that Obama's Great Seal somehow breaks the law seems like a stretch to me -- unless you're talking about the laws of good taste.

HANNA ROSIN: "Why is crime rising in so many American cities? The answer implicates one of the most celebrated antipoverty programs of recent decades. . . . It’s difficult to contemplate solutions to this problem when so few politicians, civil servants, and academics seem willing to talk about it—or even to admit that it exists."

QUESTION: Could a defibrillator have saved Tim Russert? "NBC News has declined to comment on whether an automated external defibrillator, or A.E.D., was nearby at the time of Mr. Russert’s collapse or why a defibrillator wasn’t immediately used." Huh. Why keep mum?

And this is clearly right: "One of the many lessons from Mr. Russert’s death is that everybody should find out whether their building has a portable defibrillator and where it is located, and then learn how to use it." And public buildings should routinely be equipped with these. They're not very expensive.

More background in this post, including a report on a kid who was saved by an AED.

A LOOK AT Coldplay and intellectual property. The catchy term "coldplagiarism," however, does not appear.

RNC BLASTS OBAMA ON FREE TRADE:

He's certainly vulnerable on this issue.

SMARTER ENERGY VIEWS is Randy Neal's new alternative-energy and energy-conservation blog. Check it out.

MICHAEL S. MALONE: Now it’s AP’s turn to be a dumb media dinosaur. "What makes this all the more tragic is that the Associated Press was in the best position to survive the collapse of the newspaper industry." I don't get the dis toward the Media Bloggers' Asociation, though. They've been around for a while, and I've been a member for years.

ROBERT COX REPORTS on what's going on with the A.P. and the Drudge Retort.

THEOPHOBIA? A look at academia's attitudes toward religion.

A LAW DEGREE IN TWO YEARS: "Northwestern University is today announcing a new choice for those applying to its law school: a degree in just two years. . . . Students would complete the same number of courses and credits in the two- and three-year programs, with accelerated students simply taking an extra course most semesters."

AN INTERVIEW with Peter Zheutlin about his book, Life in the Balance: A Physician's Memoir of Life, Love, and Loss with Parkinson's Disease and Dementia.

SPIKE LEE ON making Washington, D.C. a "chocolate city."

UPDATE: More thoughts from Juliette Ochieng: "Obama's chronic dissembling has some of my white brethren nervous about everything. But if you want to pick on something Lee said, pick on the idea that more black people in DC would mean better management of disaster preparedness. If that concept were true, there would be no whining about Katrina in the first place."

CRITICAL TIMES FOR CRITICAL THINKING: "How can significant issues be tackled when a culture of cynicism and relativism has destroyed appreciation for the truth?"

Plus, "your feelings are your truth."

A REPORT FROM RAMADI that you're not likely to see on the evening news.

AL GORE TRYING TO SHUT DOWN AFP'S HOT AIR EVENT in Nashville.

MCCAIN- LIEBERMAN: Yeah, that's the ticket.

JONAH GOLDBERG, MICHAEL SILENCE, ANDREW BREITBART, AND MORE, on the latest PJM Political, now online in case you didn't hear it on XM Satellite Radio last night.

MORE ON THE SUBPRIME SIX AND THE COUNTRYWIDE MORTGAGE SCANDAL, including local TV on Kent Conrad. It almost seems as if local media are doing tougher reporting than national media here . . . .

DAVID BROOKS:

On the one hand, there is Dr. Barack, the high-minded, Niebuhr-quoting speechifier who spent this past winter thrilling the Scarlett Johansson set and feeling the fierce urgency of now. But then on the other side, there’s Fast Eddie Obama, the promise-breaking, tough-minded Chicago pol who’d throw you under the truck for votes. . . . Thursday, at the first breath of political inconvenience, Fast Eddie Obama threw public financing under the truck. In so doing, he probably dealt a death-blow to the cause of campaign-finance reform. And the only thing that changed between Thursday and when he lauded the system is that Obama’s got more money now.

And Fast Eddie Obama didn’t just sell out the primary cause of his life. He did it with style. He did it with a video so risibly insincere that somewhere down in the shadow world, Lee Atwater is gaping and applauding.

That's the new politics of hope and change! But Ann Althouse thinks it's fine:

It's fine with me. I don't like the campaign finance scheme. And I like a practical politician who adjusts to changing circumstances. It's good news that he's not an ideologue. I don't think he's going to lose the people who fell in love with him as a vision of idealism. I think he's going to gain moderate people like me who want an effective, sensible leader.

On the other hand, she notes that Obama doesn't fact-check very well.

THE MILITARY'S AURORA MYSTERY MACHINE, explained.

WELL, THAT'S A RELIEF: Report rules out subatomic doomsday. The safety report on the Large Hadron Collider is out. Alan Boyle has background, a summary, and links to the full report.

I COULD LIVE WITH THAT: A McCain presidency would mean electric cars powered by nuclear plants, clean coal.

KYLE SMITH DOESN'T LIKE the new Get Smart movie.

ILYA SOMIN ON the Milton Friedman Institute and ideological intolerance in academia. "Normally, a university's decision to name an institute after its most famous and successful professor would be a completely uncontroversial nonstory. However, over 100 University of Chicago professors have signed a letter protesting the decision. Essentially, they object to naming a research institute after Friedman because he was a libertarian rather than a liberal or leftist - even though Friedman's academic distinction is such that he clearly deserves the honor."

IS THE MEDIA BLOOM off the Obama rose?

IN THE MAIL: Deborah Stone's The Samaritan's Dilemma: Should Government Help Your Neighbor?

GAY MARRIAGE IN CALIFORNIA: Thank Tila Tequila!

Knoxville, Tennessee. The Sunspot Bar.

MIDWEST FLOODING: Geeks to the rescue.

NOT WORTHY: "Thus describes the incredibly unctuous hosts of two of cable's lowest-rated shows trying to finagle their way into Tim Russert's chair on Meet the Press."

COOL: Ice on Mars:

After a decade of shouting, “Follow the water!” in its exploration of Mars, NASA can finally say that one of its spacecraft has reached out, touched water ice and scooped it up.

Best case: Water, but no life.

AUSTIN BAY on Obama's retreat from retreat. Plus, who "the real rubes in this election" will turn out to be . . . .

FIGHTING GLOBAL WARMING with nice, clean nuclear power.

HEIGHTENING THE CONTRADICTIONS: "But there is a serious point to be made here, which is that it’s very interesting to observe the contradictions among liberals between their desire for progressive taxation and their advocacy for higher gasoline taxes."

IT'S MORE A FETISH THAN A SUPERSTITION, REALLY:

The Tuskegee outrage was real. But the notion that the Tuskegee experiment--which began in the Jim Crow era (1932) and ended in 1972, eight years after the Civil Rights Act became law--reflects the attitudes of American governmental and medical institutions today is an urban legend, a superstition--and potentially a deadly one.

The Times's account suggests that girls in Chicago were denied potentially lifesaving vaccinations because Michelle Obama pandered to racial paranoia instead of standing up for the truth. Is that why they pay her the big bucks?

Don't be silly. They pay her the big bucks because she's married to a Senator.

June 19, 2008

IS WIND-POWER NIMBYISM OVER? "There are already more than 20 offshore wind farms producing electricity in Europe but, in this country, such proposals have sparked opposition from the Great Lakes states to Long Island. Opponents, including seafront homeowners, say such installations would threaten avian and aquatic life and ruin scenic vistas. With such environmental concerns pitted against the demand for clean energy, there is not a single offshore turbine anywhere in the United States. But with energy prices soaring and climate concerns on the rise, the days of such stalemates may be numbered."

OKAY, THIS IS JUST WRONG: "By the end of the month, White Lily Flour, for more than 100 years a staple for biscuits, cakes and pies, will no longer be made in the South."

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

Compare that to what could happen if a human rights tribunal decides against Maclean's: It could order the private magazine to publish material and images against its editors' wishes. Let me repeat that: The state will order Maclean's to publish something it does not want to publish. Isn't that what China does? So why don't ear-to-the-ground, free speech-loving Canadian artists denounce it?

Read the whole thing.

JAY LENO on magnificent obsessions.

JACK LAIL: "The most ironic angle to surface so far in the AP vs Drudge Retort copyright/fair use flap is the suggestion of an ethical lapse in the New York Times' coverage of the tempest by failing to disclose it is among the 'owners' of the news service. Which leads me to a question: Who forgot newspaper media companies were the owners of the Associated Press first? The AP or the newspapers?"

MICHAEL TOTTEN REVIEWS Adam Sandler's You Don't Mess with the Zohan. "After Hollywood’s recent spate of dour axe-grinding films about Iraq, a fun movie featuring an Israeli counter-terrorist as the protagonist is a refreshing change, even if it is no more serious or realistic than a cartoon."

A LOOK AT THE SCIENCE OF PRESSURE COOKERS.

Earlier pressure cooker blogging can be found here. I continue to like mine; the Insta-Daughter is particularly fond of pot roast done this way.

LASHAWN BARBER ON Christian bands and their groupies.

THE S.U.V. IS DEAD: Long Live the S.U.V.? "The future still holds the promise that the once-great SUV will again rise to prominence, at least if we're willing to believe the concepts we've seen out of the automakers' design studios."

"SUPREME HUMAN DIGNITY." A quiz.

A CALL FOR HEARINGS AND INVESTIGATION on the Milberg, Weiss scandal. "What assurance is there that the bribery, obstruction of justice and fraud exposed by the Milberg Weiss scandal are not the rule, rather than the exception, in class-action securities litigation? After all, former Milberg Weiss partner William Lerach insists that he is in federal prison for doing what was 'industry practice.'"

THINGS I NEVER KNEW I NEEDED: A neoprene ice cream sleeve. With and without a zipper.

The Glenn and Helen Show: Kathleen Parker on Why Men Matter

They used to say that it was a man's world, but you don't hear that much any more. Women outnumber men in college, get preferential legal treatment in many areas, and in general seem to be doing better, while boys lag girls in education and men generally seem to be doing worse. Should anyone care?

Yes, says Kathleen Parker in her new book, Save the Males: Why Men Matter Why Women Should Care. We talk with her about what's going on, why the condition of men matters to women, and why many men are afraid to speak out. Plus, Barack Obama on fatherhood.

You can listen directly -- no downloads needed -- by going here and selecting the gray Flash player. You can download the file and listen at your leisure by clicking right here. And you can always get a free subscription via iTunes -- and why not, really?

Music is by The Mr. T. Experience. Show archives are at GlennandHelenShow.com.

MORE LIES ABOUT MCCAIN AND IRAQ FACT-CHECKED. Okay, actually it's just the same old lie, repeated again.

SUBPRIME SIX UPDATE: A massive sweetheart deal for the mortgage industry, sponsored by a "friend of Angelo." If you put this in a novel, people would call it heavy-handed.

UPDATE: The view from Chris Dodd's home state. "He says he thought the VIP treatment he got from Countrywide Financial was just because he was a good customer, and not because he was a United States Senator who chairs the senate banking committee. It appears some people in Connecticut are having a hard time buying that." Video at the link.

CORRECTING BARACK OBAMA'S RHETORIC: "Tricky rhetoric. We are having an argument about what American jurisprudence dictates. It's a difficult question, and the people who disagree with Obama — such as the dissenters in Boumediene — don't favor throwing out 'American jurisprudence.' . . . He is defining and balancing these things differently from the way they do, and I wish he'd be more precise about what his plan is rather than simply asserting that he will be able to harmonize competing interests so that everything works out just fine."

OFFSHORE DRILLING AND THE ENVIRONMENT:

Mr. Maass decried the environmental and social messes that have resulted in other parts of the world as oil companies drilled elsewhere — from the Amazon to Africa — when the American public turned against drilling here after a spill off the coast of California.

Outsourcing drilling doesn't lead to more environmental protection, but to less. Related thoughts from John Tierney.

TIM LYNCH ON John Yoo and Boumediene.

A THIRD CLINTON TERM? With everybody but Bill and Hillary!

PUBLIC FINANCING? "Never mind."

KASHMIR HILL: The Affirmative Action Matryoshka: Where Does It End?

IN THE MAIL: My copy of Rebooting America: Ideas for Redesigning American Democracy for the Internet Age, put out by the Personal Democracy Forum. My chapter was on privacy.

I'll be on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show in just a minute, talking about it.

UPDATE: Well, we wound up talking more about Obama's decision to drop out of public campaign financing -- my take: he's hypocritical, but at least he's killing campaign finance "reform" -- and I kept getting my phone connection dropped, so I don' t think it was one of my better appearances. Also, they said I'd be attending the Personal Democracy Forum at Lincoln Center in NYC, but alas, that's not the case.

Knoxville, Tennessee. The University of Tennessee Law School.

WELL, THIS IS ENCOURAGING: I hope it pans out, anyway. "A cancer patient has made a full recovery after being injected with billions of his own immune cells in the first case of its kind, doctors have disclosed. The 52-year-old, who was suffering from advanced skin cancer, was free from tumours within eight weeks of undergoing the procedure. After two years he is still free from the disease which had spread to his lymph nodes and one of his lungs." Faster, please.

BILL ALLISON: Subprime 6, 60 . . . well, at least 13 . . .

MATHEMATICS IS THE LANGUAGE OF NATURE: Is the Universe actually made of math?

TAYLOR MARSH: Obama Campaign Angers and Confuses Clinton Supporters. Apparently the healing isn't complete.

HEH: "They told Glenn Reynolds that if George Bush were elected Muslims would face discrimination at political rallies... and they were right!"

D'oh! How did I miss that?

PAYBACK: Rumsfeld declines to endorse McCain.

INDEED: "Messrs. Obama and McCain both reveal a disturbing animus toward free markets and success."

WHERE'S THE BEEF BACON? "Is the Obama campaign in danger of overdoing the I-am-not-a-Muslim routine? After all, it's not bad to be Muslim."

This, on the other hand, smells like something, but it's not bacon.

UPDATE: Related thoughts from Rick Moran. "It pains me to waste space on this website attempting to tamp down these persistent and pernicious rumors that Obama is or was a Muslim. By relating the substance (more accurately, the total lack of substance) of these rumors, even the act of debunking them could be seen as promoting the smear." If Obama loses, Rick, you'll probably be blamed for just that.

MEGAN MCARDLE ON WHY WE DON'T HAVE HIGH-SPEED RAIL: "I am about to blame--you will perhaps be unsurprised--the government. Why isn't there a high speed train from New York to Chicago? Well, first of all, this would greatly anger legislators from New York and Michigan, who like the fact that the Chicago train must pass through Buffalo and Detroit, even if this assures that almost no one with a job will actually use it. There's also the problem of the Federal construction process. The high speed train between DC and Charlotte was first conceived in the early 1990s. The EIS for this project will be completed probably sometime in 2010."

LOOKING AT SCENARIOS where Obama wins the popular vote but loses the election. Thus doubling the irony of this year's Democratic primary.

AL SHARPTON FACES a subpoena blitz. "Sharpton himself, his business entities and his nonprofit civil-advocacy group owe millions in back taxes, documents show."

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

We hope the "free speecher" Prof. Moon conducts the review and recommends that CHRC rein in its overzealous regulation of speech.

Yet even if that happens, the main problems with the federal commission -- and its provincial counterparts -- will not have been addressed. It is increasingly obvious these commissions were set up deliberately to lower the standard of proof and get around rules of natural justice, thereby ensuring people who would never be convicted in court are punished to the satisfaction of the activists and special interest groups that hover around the tribunals.

Third parties not involved in the alleged offences may nonetheless file complaints. Occasionally, the plaintiff has been given access to the commissions' investigation files and given the power to direct investigators. Truth is not a defence. Defendants are not always permitted to face their accusers. Normal standards for assuring the validity of evidence do not apply. Hearsay is admitted. The government funds the plaintiff but the defendant is on his own and commission investigators may attempt to entrap suspects by getting them to say or do hateful things they might not have done on their own.

No wonder the CHRC has a 100% conviction rate on hate speech complaints.

Maple-leaf fascism? Just remember, there are plenty of people who'd like to see this happen in America, too.

TIGERHAWK: The partisan theory of Osama bin Laden's freedom.

June 18, 2008

ROBERT COX: Backstory on AP - Drudge Retort Issue.

GOOLSBEE'S BACK! Obama: NAFTA not so bad after all.

BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION? Hell, I've seen it done.

SHOULDN'T THE CHAIRMAN OF THE SENATE BANKING COMMITTEE know what the interest rates are?

Perhaps this explains the subprime mess . . . .

NO TOMATO SHORTAGE in my household.

ROBERT LEVY: "Fortunately, Heller presents the Supreme Court with another opportunity to declare its allegiance in the battles between the written and 'living' Constitutions. The text of the Second Amendment clearly protects the right of 'the people' - not states, not militias, but 'people' to 'keep and bear arms.' By striking down the D.C. gun ban, the Supreme Court can affirm that basic principle and restore the Second Amendment to its rightful place of dignity within the Bill of Rights." I certainly hope that it does so.

CAR LUST: Fond memories of the Corvette ZR-1.

I'M GUESSING THAT NONE WERE AMONG THE "SUBPRIME SIX:" Nine Senators Urge Reid to Delay Countrywide Bailout Vote. "Earlier today the following letter was sent by nine senators to Majority Leader Harry Reid asking him to delay consideration of the housing bill in light of recent allegations related to Countrywide Financial, which stands to gain more than a $2.5 billion taxpayer bailout in the bill." Follow the link for more.

VEEPSTAKES: Cast your vote for Vice President, for both the Democrats and the GOP. Plus, win an ASUS Mini-PC or an Amazon Kindle.

A LOOK AT supplementary testosterone for men.

A LOOK AT Obama's shifting positions on Iraq.

CAN YOU REALLY SAVE 20% ON YOUR ELECTRIC BILL with a simple power-use monitor? I dunno, but I'll bet it pays for itself in short order.

WHAT'S IMPORTANT for the Army.

SORRY, BABE, I'D LIKE TO STAY, but I'm shipping out tomorrow to cheese boot camp.

SILICON GRAFFITI: When waves collide.

HIGH SPEED TRAINS ARE KILLING AIRPLANES IN EUROPE. If you could get me to DC in four hours -- or even six -- I'd take a train over a plane, and probably over driving. I doubt the economics work on most U.S. routes, though.

MORE ANIMAL RIGHTS TERRORISM: UCLA van torched by animal rights activists.

POLITICO: Muslims barred from picture at Obama event. "The campaign has apologized to the women, both Obama supporters who said they felt betrayed by their treatment at the rally."

Gaffe-o-Matic! You know, an Obama presidency could be fun.

UPDATE: More: "That hurts, and the campaign has officially apologized. But should we really be dismayed to learn that the campaign cares about the look of the people behind the candidate? Don't you remember 'Get me more white people, we need more white people'? It should be done more tactfully, but wouldn't it be incompetent not to control the backdrop?" But it sounds like the old politics, not the new politics of hope and change.

MORE ON THE SUBPRIME SIX: "A leading House Republican called Monday for hearings to determine which lawmakers received discount mortgage deals from Countrywide Financial Corp., but his colleagues in the House and the Senate don’t seem particularly eager to start turning over rocks."

That's because it'll probably turn out to be more like the subprime sixty.

BOB COX ON THE A.P./ BLOGGER ISSUE: "There's a lot of misinformation out there,"

LAURA INGRAHAM'S BEEN LOCKED OUT, but her fans are organizing to bring her back at Bring Back Laura.com.

Power to the people!

A FUN 41 MPG CAR -- at last!

YOUR INEXPERIENCE IS SHOWING: "An advisor, Daniel Kurtzer, to Barack Obama says that Obama didn’t realize what he was saying to AIPAC when he used the term 'undivided' in reference to Jerusalem."

IOWA VS. KATRINA: Some thoughts.

IN THE MAIL: Amity Shlaes' The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. Now in paperback!

GROOVIN' ON GOVERNMENT! Asheville, North Carolina. Unsurprisingly, you see a lot of Obama stickers here. . . .

ROLL CALL: Earmark drove Jefferson bribery case.

STILL MORE on the Countrywide Mortgage scandal and the "subprime six," from Investor's Business Daily, which wonders why this story isn't getting more media traction. "But the problem won't go away, and neither will we."

A REPORT ON China's Proliferation Practices, and the Development of its Cyber and Space Warfare Capabilities.

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: 7 Ways McCain Can Use Energy to Beat Obama. A lot of people see this as an opportunity for McCain, and I think they're right. Hairshirt environmentalism never seems to do well with voters.

CANADIAN KANGAROO COURT UPDATE: The "human rights" commissions seem to be feeling the heat, as they've decided to launch an "independent review" of themselves:

Amid mounting public and political controversy, the Canadian Human Rights Commission has launched an independent review of the way it deals with hate speech on the Internet.

Chief Commissioner Jennifer Lynch announced Tuesday she has asked Richard Moon, a leading constitutional expert at the University of Windsor, to conduct the study. His report, expected this October, will help shape the commission's position on whether Internet hate laws should be changed, she said.

Seems like smoke-blowing to me, and I question the independence of an evaluator picked by the evaluatee. But the fact that they're doing this suggests that they're feeling the need for cover.

HOWARD KURTZ: "Taking offense has become a political art form." Actually, it's been one for a while. What's got people nonplussed is that Republicans have started to do it, too.

Related item here.

EUGENE VOLOKH DALE CARPENTER on religious liberty and single-sex marriage.

UPDATE: The dreaded co-blogger confusion strikes again! Thanks to reader Mark Garbowski for pointing out the error.

DISASTER PREPAREDNESS IN WASHINGTON, D.C.:

Last Friday’s power outage forced the White House to go to backup generators and left a 30-block section of downtown Washington darkened for nearly three hours. The blackout raises anew worries that the nation’s capital still isn’t prepared to respond to an unexpected crisis nearly seven years after 9/11. At the heart of the problem are sluggish responses from public officials and an alert system that can be all but paralyzed by indecision and inaction. This must be fixed now — before there’s a real emergency. . . . Heaven help us if there’s ever a natural catastrophe or major terrorist attack.

Read the whole thing.

INSURGENCY BY PRESS RELEASE? Well, it's cheaper and safer.

MORE ON Countrywide Mortgage, the "Subprime Six," and the Obama campaign.

THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF coffee and chocolate. Just don't forget your red wine!

DANIEL DREZNER ON China's soft power gap.

June 17, 2008

EARL OFARI HUTCHINSON: Obama, Lay Off Black Fathers! "Obama's portrait of the irresponsible absentee black father is a distorted stereotype."

PATTERICO ON THE ASSOCIATED PRESS:

Now, in a slightly ironic twist, the AP is taking content from a blog site. Namely, mine.

In a news item about the e-mail from Judge Kozinski’s wife that I posted on this site, an AP article lifted numerous passages.

I counted 154 words quoted from my post. That’s almost twice the number of words contained in the most extensive quotation in the Drudge Retort.

Yes, but they're news professionals, so they shouldn't have to pay for content. That's for everybody else. . . .

UPDATE: Bill Hobbs comments: "Patterico catches the Associated Press doing what the AP threatened to sue bloggers for doing. . . . By the time this fight is over, the AP may well be offering to pay bloggers to link to AP stories." Well, possibly. More likely, they'll fold their tents quietly.

ANOTHER UPDATE: In response to Orin Kerr, those words certainly belonged to someone, that someone wasn't the AP, and the AP nonetheless used them without permission. If that use is okay, then . . . .

WOULD SOMEBODY PLEASE explain markets to John McCain?

INTERESTED IN AGING AND LONGEVITY RESEARCH? Check out this conference at UCLA starting June 27.

RAND SIMBERG:

What's amazing is not so much that Congress won't allow us to pump oil, which we badly need to do. They won't even allow us to look for it, especially if it's in a "pristine" (aka barren coastal plain, frozen in the winter and a mosquito-infested bog in the summer) region, at least according to Senator McCain.

What are they afraid we might find?

Indeed.

WHAT? SAY IT AIN'T SO! Law School Is Not a Golden Ticket.

Plus, Legal education's perfect storm. "Schools, Enrollment, and Debt Are Up, Jobs Are Down."

A LOOK AT Obama's accomplishments. Some further observations here. "Vapor trail?" Well, his rise has been meteoric.

THE SUBPRIME SIX:

1. Senator Chris Dodd-(D-Conn.)
2. Kent Conrad (D-ND.)
3. Alphonso Jackson (D-HUD Secretary)
4. Donna Shalala-(D-HHS Secretary)
5. Richard Holbrooke (D-ASecretary of State)(and future Sec. State?)
6. James Johnson (D-Obama Veep Selection)

Were there no Republicans involved?

UPDATE: Ah, Alphonso Jackson is a Republican. I seemed to remember this as a bipartisan scandal.

ANOTHER UPDATE: But kinda lopsided. Video here.

MORE: Reader Jack Slovic emails:

Let me see if I get this right:

Sen. Dodd Calls the CEO shopping for a mortgage doing what "millions of people do" and upon hearing he¹s a friend of Angelo thinks this is the same deal "Millions" will be able to "negotiate."

Then Kent "No Clue" Conrad also calls his buddy Angelo (whom he's never met) and having no idea that he's getting a better deal.

I'm puzzled. If Mr. Dodd and Conrad are really this stupid that they call the CEO of a national mortgage company looking for a loan and don't expect a special deal they're too dumb to be in congress. If on the other hand they think we're stupid enough to believe these lame excuses they out to be run out of town on a rail.

Finally the unanswered question is who gave these two clowns Angelo's phone number?

Good point.

A LIST OF FAVORITE Brian Eno songs.

AL GORE: Still guzzling energy in Nashville. "Despite adding solar panels, installing a geothermal system, replacing existing light bulbs with more efficient models, and overhauling the home’s windows and ductwork, Gore now consumes more electricity than before the 'green' overhaul."

Lots of talk, but more bloated than ever. It's almost like a metaphor.

THOUGHTS ON WIVES MURDERING HUSBANDS, and whether the statistics are trustworthy.

UNRELIABLE EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY:

"It was burned into my mind, my eyes ... what he looked like."

Burned, "seared," whatever -- you can't trust these things as much as you'd think.

ANOTHER THING TO IMPERIL WORKERS: "Damn that globalization, technology, and automation! . . . Now please be quiet while I watch the US Open being played in La Jolla, Californa, while I'm on a campaign bus in Flint, Michigan."

MICHAEL SILENCE: The AP has earned itself a blogswarm.

TIME FOR better storm-tracking radar?

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT: Alan Boyle reports on litigation over the Large Hadron Collider, and claims that it will bring about the end of the world universe.

SOME ADULT-THEMED TATER TOTS: No, really. But safe for work, unless you work for, you know, Sidney Wolfe or Kelly Brownell or something.

COFFEE: Is there anything it can't do? "Long-term coffee drinking does not appear to increase a person's risk of early death and may cut a person's chances of dying from heart disease, according to a study published on Monday."

MICHAEL TOTTEN: No more Gazas.

OBAMA IS WAY AHEAD, in this poll.

GRAND ROUNDS IS UP!

AN APOLOGY: "Former state Rep. Fred Hobbs has apologized to fellow members of the Tennessee Democratic Party Executive Committee for declaring that Barack Obama 'may be terrorist connected.'"

UPDATE: Reader Sean Fitzpatrick emails: "Within a week, the MSM will have 'accidentally' referred to Hobbs as a Republican or as a right-wing blogger." That does seem to fit the pattern.

GOOD NEWS: Foreign firms investing in Iraq:

European and Asian companies are beating their American rivals into Iraq now that security has improved the investment climate, Iraq and U.S. officials say.

"It's starting to turn … and the people who are getting in on the ground floor are not American," said Paul Brinkley, the Pentagon official who is leading U.S. efforts to help Iraq rebuild its economy. "It's ironic."

Indeed.

MORE Haditha charges dismissed.

UPDATE: More here.

TURNING THE CLOCK BACK to 1993. An auspicious year for antiterrorism!

UPDATE: Gaffe-o-Matic!

WELL, THIS IS ENCOURAGING: Blueprint for Nuclear Warhead Found on Smugglers' Computers.

FIGHTING HUNGER, with a new way of growing rice.

Harvests typically double, he says, if farmers plant early, give seedlings more room to grow and stop flooding fields. That cuts water and seed costs while promoting root and leaf growth.

The method, called the System of Rice Intensification, or S.R.I., emphasizes the quality of individual plants over the quantity. It applies a less-is-more ethic to rice cultivation.

In a decade, it has gone from obscure theory to global trend — and encountered fierce resistance from established rice scientists. Yet a million rice farmers have adopted the system, Dr. Uphoff says. The rural army, he predicts, will swell to 10 million farmers in the next few years, increasing rice harvests, filling empty bellies and saving untold lives.

If fields aren't flooded, that will drastically cut back the production of greenhouse methane. Of course, that might just hasten the new ice age . . . .

MICKEY KAUS: "Is Obama Setting the Stage for a Social Security Means-Test?"

Plus this: "If Obama really will hike the top rate into the 60% pre-Reagan range, as Krugman and the Center on Tax Policy suggest, that's a big deal." Yes, it is.

HEH: Remember Those Iraqi Benchmarks? Well, Guess What… "Democrats no