March 03, 2007

TIME FOR A SISTER SOULJAH MOMENT with Ann Coulter?

Plus, Coulter fatigue. And a Nagourney/Coulter email exchange.

UPDATE: More Nagourney emails here.

A RAID IN EAST TIMOR: "International security forces raided a rebel base they had been surrounding in East Timor, the country's president said. Four people were killed in the raid early Sunday, but President Xanana Gusmao did not identify them. . . . The United Nations, which is control of security in the country, was scheduled to hold a media conference within hours."

Another report here.

STEPHEN HAWKING WILL GO ZERO-G:

On April 26, Dr. Hawking, surrounded by a medical entourage, is to take a zero-gravity ride out of Cape Canaveral on a so-called vomit comet, a padded aircraft that flies a roller-coaster trajectory to produce periods of weightlessness. He is getting his lift gratis, from the Zero Gravity Corporation, which has been flying thrill seekers on a special Boeing 727-200 since 2004 at $3,500 a trip.

Peter H. Diamandis, chief executive of Zero G, said that “the idea of giving the world’s expert on gravity the opportunity to experience zero gravity” was irresistible.

In some ways, this is only a prelude. Dr. Hawking announced on his 65th birthday, in January, that he hoped to take a longer, higher flight in 2009 on a space plane being developed by Richard Branson’s company Virgin Galactic, which seeks to take six passengers to an altitude of 70 miles.

Dr. Hawking says he wants to encourage public interest in spaceflight, which he believes is critical to the future of humanity. . . . “Life on Earth,” he said, “is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of.”

He and I are in agreement on that.

IRAQ'S POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC BULLET: Interesting.

ANN ALTHOUSE'S NEW YORK TIMES COLUMN on speech and law schools is now available for free outside the Times Select paywall.

And be sure to read this post, and the comments that go with it.

DONALD SENSING is defending Al Gore.

CHEESE is a poor substitute. But I feel pretty sure that my heart will never belong to Julian Sanchez.

ANOTHER PUTIN CRITIC MYSTERIOUSLY SHOT: In the United States, this time.

HIGH EFFICIENCY INCANDESCENT LIGHT BULBS: Bring it on.

PUSHING ETHANOL:

President Bush, hoping to reduce demand for oil in the Western Hemisphere, is preparing to finish an agreement with Brazil next week to promote the production and use of ethanol throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, according to administration officials.

Not a bad idea, in terms of promoting energy independence, though ethanol, like other biofuels, is generally overhyped. But there's also this objection:

But the agreement has already begun to prompt complaints from politicians from corn-producing regions of the United States. They fear that the plan would lead to an increase in imports of cheap foreign ethanol and undercut American producers.

That's stupid, or at least self-serving. In fact, we should get rid of the protectionist trade barriers that favor corn syrup over sugar anyway. Plus, there's this bonus:

By increasing ethanol production and consumption, particularly in countries that produce sugar, officials of the Bush administration hope to reduce the region’s overall dependence on foreign oil and to take some of the pressure off oil prices.

As a side effect, American officials contend, the program could also reduce the influence of Hugo Chavez, the president of oil-rich Venezuela.

Does that mean that the agribusiness interests who oppose this plan are unpatriotic?

UPDATE: Ethanol tariff protest babes! Well, pretty much.

DON SURBER:

Only 2 percent of India is air-conditioned versus 71 percent of the United States. India not only is further south but it has nearly four times the U.S. population.

Now would be a good time to make sure India gets its air-conditioning right to protect the planet.

Instead, we are worrying about what kind of light bulbs Wal-Mart sells.

He's right. Compact fluorescents are swell -- I've installed over a dozen now, and will have my house mostly converted soon as old bulbs burn out and I replace 'em with CFLs. But while this stuff is worthwhile, it's not much in the great scheme of things, and the stuff that does matter gets less attention because it doesn't fit the moralistic approach that global-warming activists have chosen to take.

That moralistic approach is also why Gore got slammed so much for hypocrisy. Carbon offsets (to the -- unclear -- extent that they're non-fake) are a practical, rationalistic, capitalistic approach to a problem that has been defined in romantic, moralistic, apocalyptic terms.

THE HIGH COST OF RAISING A KID:

Government figures put the total cost of raising a child at $279,000, but some increasingly common expenses can send the number soaring over $1 million.

Is it any wonder that birthrates are low? And this feeds on itself -- when people have fewer kids, they spend more, which encourages more spending and makes it more expensive to have kids, encouraging people to have fewer, on which they spend more . . . .

Add to this the increased social costs in terms of higher parenting standards -- which are mostly a matter of parental competitiveness and guilt, rather than the kids' actual needs -- and we're in an unfortunate spiral. More on that topic here.

HEH.

ALWAYS-ON CAMERAS: Making a difference in the Tennessee legislature, according to this report.

MEGAN MCARDLE wants laptop advice.

I'm still happy with this one. The EVDO service works well, and will even roam to non-Sprint providers. Battery life is terrific. Biggest weakness: It's so light you can't tell if it's in your briefcase without looking.

A REPORT FROM IRAQ, in the Small Wars Journal. (Via RealClearPolitics).

KILLING FIELDS, then and now.

THOUGHTS ON HEALTH CARE, from Cathy Seipp.

Plus, some sort-of related thoughts from Stuart Browning.

I'VE NOTED BEFORE that "public health" folks seem to have gotten more interested in political crusading than in, you know, public health. Here's another example:

Rats! New York City has become a national laughingstock.

Indeed, while Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden has kept busy as a beaver designing new paradigms for public health - databanks for diabetics and trans-fatless fast food - the rats have been running amok.

That's rats as in Rattus norvegicus - a legendary dispenser of disgusting diseases and the bane of traditional practitioners of public health for centuries.

Video footage of Rattus - a whole herd of them - flitting about a Village fast-food joint made national news last week.

Before they start with their bureaucrat-empowering agenda of 21st-century health initiatives, maybe they should get a handle on the 19th-century health problems first. . . .

Some related thoughts on public health here.

IN THE MAIL: Brian Frazer's Hyper-chondriac: One Man's Quest to Hurry Up and Calm Down. Helen grabbed it, read it, and has posted a review.

THE MYTHBUSTERS offer advice on extreme plumbing:

The forces at play with high-pressure tanks can be huge. If the energy stored in a workshop air-compressor tank is released all at once, it can hurt or kill a person. I once complained to our insurers, “Why are you so fussy about the explosives we use on the show? Every day we make rigs using pressure tanks that are just as dangerous.” Big mistake. Now they fuss about pressure tanks, too.

Read the whole thing, which is quite amusing.

FREEMAN HUNT is blogging pictures of her new baby. Cute!

BLOGGER OF THE YEAR: It's much deserved.

SCOTT BURGESS: "As has been widely noted, accusations of hypocrisy have made it a bad week for do-gooders on both sides of the Atlantic."

AN ASSASSINATION THE LEFT CAN FEEL GOOD ABOUT.

BEST BUY CHARGED WITH RUNNING A FAKE WEBSITE:

Under pressure from state investigators, Best Buy is now confirming my reporting that its stores have a secret intranet site that has been used to block some consumers from getting cheaper prices advertised on BestBuy.com. . . .

Based on what his office has learned, Blumenthal said, it appears the consumer has the burden of informing Best Buy sales people of the cheaper price listed on its Internet site, which he said "is troubling."

What is more troubling to me, and to some Best Buy customers, is that even when one informs a salesperson of the Internet price, customers have been shown the intranet site, which looks identical to the Internet site, but does not always show the lowest price.

Blumenthal said that because of the fuzzy responses from Best Buy, he has yet to figure out the real motivation behind the intranet site and whether sales people are encouraged to use it to cheat customers.

Hmm. Hard to believe they'd be so stupid, but I've been surprised by stupidity before.

THE NIFONG AFFAIR, ON CHARLIE ROSE: K.C. Johnson has a transcript and links to video.

BRENDAN LOY HAS THOUGHTS on genocide and hypocrisy.

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S INTERNET DATA RETENTION POLICY, in which ISPs are being "encouraged" to keep information on what customers upload and download, is getting a lot of criticism, and rightly so.

On the other hand, the dynamic here is exactly what we see with the pressure on gun sellers to retain data on firearms purchasers on the chance that it might be useful to law enforcement someday. Gun-rights activists fear (rightly) that it may be used to support confiscation efforts someday, but are told, even by civil liberties enthusiasts, that such fears are paranoid. Now that the slippery slope has gotten slipperier, maybe people more people will note the similarity.

THE ECONOMIST: "Why so much medical research is rot." (Thanks to reader Ted Nolan for the link.)

JASON VAN STEENWYK is fact-checking the LAT's Rosa Brooks.

IN TODAY'S NEW YORK TIMES, Ann Althouse has a column on PC hypersensitivity and legal education. It's behind the damnable Times Select paywall, but here's a key bit:

Ironically, you have to care enough about engaging energetically with issues of race to run into this sort of trouble. It's so much easier to skip the subject altogether, to embrace a theory of colorblindness or to scoop out gobs of politically correct pabulum. It's only when you challenge the students and confront them with something that can be experienced as ugly -- even if you're only trying to highlight your law firm's illustrious fight against racism -- that you create the risk that someone may take offense. . . .

It would have been so much easier to teach using simple, straightforward lecturing, with every sentence carefully composed, with a sharp eye on the goal of never giving anyone any reason to question the purity of your beliefs and the beneficence of your heart.

Your colleagues may sympathize with you in private, but most likely they'll be rethinking this idea -- heartily promoted in law schools since the 1980s -- that they ought to actively incorporate delicate issues of race into their courses.

Publicly, the school goes into damage-control mode. After all, it has worked so hard to bring together a diverse student body and to convey a feeling of welcome to everyone. How can we bear to hear a student say, as one Wisconsin student did on Thursday, that ''unless we have a safe learning environment,'' the school's commitment to diversity ''doesn't mean anything''?

But this is madness! Our question should not be about what we can do to make you comfortable or how we can make your life pleasant again.

The problem is that law school administrators, like administrators everywhere, tend to care more about having things run smoothly than about fairness, or the quality of classroom discourse. And that tends to be exploited by people with agendas.

UPDATE: Visit Ann's blog for more on this. Just keep scrolling.

March 02, 2007

SATURN FROM ABOVE: Cool photos and video, here.

BLOGS: A "parasitic medium?" I'd say more symbiotic. After all, look at the original reporting in the post below this one.

UPDATE: More original reporting here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More on blogs vs. the MSM here.

ANN COULTER DOES IT AGAIN:

Ann Coulter almost made it through her CPAC speech without looking like a complete buffoon. . . . Near the end of her speech she said she wouldn’t talk about John Edwards because ” you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot.’” She’s now on non-speaking terms with any gay and lesbian friends.

Nice. There's audio at the link.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey: "At some point, Republicans will need to get over their issues with homosexuality."

COZYING UP to the Axis of Evil.

HEH: Switzerland invades Liechtenstein:

What began as a routine training exercise almost ended in an embarrassing diplomatic incident after a company of Swiss soldiers got lost at night and marched into neighboring Liechtenstein.

According to Swiss daily Blick, the 170 infantry soldiers from the neutral country wandered more than a mile across an unmarked border into the tiny principality early Thursday before realizing their mistake and turning back.

A spokesman for the Swiss army confirmed the story, but said that there were unlikely to be any serious repercussions for the mistaken invasion.

"We've spoken to the authorities in Liechtenstein and it's not a problem," Daniel Reist told The Associated Press on Friday.

Reports that France surrendered in response to this story, however, are false.

MANUFACTURING HATE SPEECH? Pretty tacky, and possibly illegal, but I've noticed that there seems to be something of a campaign going on at the moment.

THE BBC strikes a deal with YouTube. For a state enterprise, they're surprisingly nimble in some ways.

ARMY SECRETARY RESIGNS OVER WALTER REED SCANDALS:

Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey abruptly stepped down Friday as the Bush administration struggled to cope with the fallout from a scandal over substandard conditions for wounded Iraq soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

The surprise move came one day after Harvey fired the two-star general in charge of the medical center in response to disclosures of problems at the hospital compound.

I don't have much to say about this beyond -- as with Enterprise, Alabama -- "this sucks," and unlike this medical story it's gotten plenty of attention. But it does suck.

UPDATE: Robert Gates: A breath of fresh air?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Sgt. Mom emails:

Do you want to know what the biggest surprise in this whole Walter Reed 'care of the troops' scandal is for me, as a retired military person? It's the surprise of the WaPo writer at the condition of their barracks. Most career military have had the opportunity of living and working in buildings that are in as bad as condition as the facility noted in the WaPo article for decades.

Seriously. More here.

I can do a stealth survey of the conditions at Brook Army Medical, but the last time I walked around the circuit, the troop housing looked pretty good, from the outside, at least. It's all new. Meaning, built in the last decade, of course.

I think they're still using "temporary" buildings from World War Two in places.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Major John Tammes emails:

So you have been to Fort McCoy?! The chaplains never tire of reminding us that the "temporary" chapel(s) were built in 1942 and meant to last for 2-5 years. They are still there... I won't go into the housing for mobilizing and demobilizing troops there either, as it is late and I don't want to get so angry I cannot sleep.

I'm sure that it's somehow Bush's fault that they weren't replaced with permanent structures at the end of their projected life.

JOHN EDWARDS ASSAULTED BY POO-SLINGING COMMUNISTS -- er, virtually, in Second Life.

BRIAN FLEMMING LOOKS AT WHAT HE WAS WRONG ABOUT in March of 2003, and issues a challenge to other bloggers: "If you are a blogger who was active in March 2003, link to that month's archive and write an entry called 'What I was wrong about in March 2003.'"

Brian's entry isn't too impressive as mea culpas go -- basically, he says he underestimated just how immoral and evil people who disagreed with him were. But it did inspire me to look through my archives and see how they held up. A few highlights:

Disagreeing with Andrew Sullivan about whether there was a "domestic war" with the New York Times, etc. I still think I was right to say: "While they clearly have an irrational dislike for President Bush, my sense is that they want what's best for America -- however misguided their views on that subject might be -- and aren't calling, after the fashion of Chrissie Hynde, for America to be given 'what it deserves.'" But follow the link for Sullivan's clarification, which seems to have been prophetic itself.

Calling SpongeBob Barbie "surreal:" In retrospect, this was a last moment from a more innocent America. But still surreal. So was this, though I don't think anyone ever got the reference.

Disagreeing with Radley Balko and Oliver Willis who didn't mind the idea of Al Qaeda terrorists being tortured. Nope. I'm still anti-torture.

Saying that "a swift American victory is pretty much the only outcome that doesn't involve a lot of dead people." That seems to have been entirely correct. Too bad it didn't work out that way, quite.

Agreeing with Jack Balkin on the Padilla case. Nope. Haven't changed my mind there.

Scorning those who compared the bombing of Saddam's ministries in Baghdad to the firebombing of Dresden. Yep, still seems right.

Worrying about Steven Den Beste's fears, including "After we win, and during the post-war occupation, I'm concerned about a campaign of terrorism developing (90%). There will still be zealots and extremists there; will we end up going through months or years of occasional suicide bombings all over the nation? How many of our occupation troops will be victims? If it happens too much, with rising intensity, will it start to make our troops suspicious of all Iraqis, and thus make them start to think of us as invaders instead of liberators? Could it totally sour the attempt to reestablish the rule of law and to start to improve life for everyday Iraqis? If it reaches levels approaching that of the Intifada, we're in deep trouble. It's virtually certain that there will be at least some of this; the question is whether it will end up being politically significant." I'd say it has become politically significant, though it hasn't been Intifada-like. (In fact, it's more like the -- current -- intra-Palestinian strife.) See this post, too. Well-founded fears on that topic, it turns out, though happily most of Steven's other worries didn't come to pass.

Saying that Columbia shouldn't fire Prof. Nicholas de Genova for hoping the war would produce "a million Mogadishus." Still agree with that.

Publishing the original Oil Trust proposal: Still like it, and that puts me on board with Hillary Clinton and Milton Friedman. Shame it hasn't happened.

Being Pro-Sodomy: Still there!

Saying that: "I do think that -- although at one level it seems premature to be talking about postwar stuff when the war is just starting -- the postwar follow-through is likely to be at least as important as the war." Alas, my MSNBC post on that topic is now lost.

Observing: "Keegan is, however, worried that we don't have enough troops on the ground, for which he blames the Turks, whose on-again off-again intransigence has produced the troop shortage as the Fourth Infantry has to go through the Suez and around to the Gulf before it can do any good. . . . I can't help but think, though, that Tommy Franks knows how many troops he has, and what he faces, better than the rest of us do. And the rap on him has always been that he's too conservative, not that he's some hell-for-leather adventurer. I'll spare you any armchair-generalship on my part. We'll see, soon enough." Franks was right for the war phase, obviously. For the postwar phase? That's still unclear.

Worry about friendly-fire incidents with allied (British) forces -- sadly, this was right.

Criticizing Patriot Act abuses, and supporting Randy Barnett for Attorney General. Not ashamed of that stance!

Noting reports of German and French responsibility for the war via their obstruction and evasion of sanctions on Saddam. You don't hear much about that anymore, do you? How convenient.

Pointing out that satellite imagery from Baghdad contradicted press reports to a highly suspicious extent. Sadly prophetic. LIkewise this report of photo-fakery at the Los Angeles Times.

So was I like Brian? Was my big mistake underestimating the dishonesty of the people who disagreed with me about the war?

Well, let's give that one a pass and look at the big picture. Knowing what I know now, would I have supported the invasion of Iraq? The actual invasion and capture of Iraq went better than most people expected -- certainly better than I expected, as I figured we'd see about as many casualties on the road to Baghdad as we've seen in the entire four years since things started. On the other hand, the postwar reconstruction, which I expected to be hard, has been worse than I, or most people (including the war critics), expected. (In retrospect, Mark Steyn's report about Palestinians heading to Baghdad was probably a harbinger of trouble.)

The domestic political posture is grim -- we've gone well beyond the three year rule on Iraq, and we're more than five years into Afghanistan, and that's costly. I think it's probably true that the White House wouldn't do it over again, if they knew what was ahead -- certainly the alternative "low-hanging fruit" approach, which called for attacking terrorist havens in Somalia, etc., probably looks better in retrospect. On the other hand, I don't much care about the political future of the Bush Administration or the Republicans as such, and would happily sacrifice them to make the country safe. Did the Iraq invasion do so? The absence of significant attacks on the U.S. is evidence, but not proof. Saddam and his regime are no longer a threat, and although Iran remains a threat, it was a threat before. It's been trying to get nukes, and regional hegemony, for decades and it's not clear that toppling Saddam made things worse, though it certainly hasn't (as I'd hoped) rendered Iran any more pliable.

And that goes to my big problem. I supported the invasion of Iraq because I saw it as a move toward shaking up the entire Middle East. But as I've noted before, we seemed to exhaust our momentum as soon as Baghdad fell. (It's almost enough to make you believe the Weekly World News theory, mentioned here before, that the invasion was really all about capturing a crashed alien spaceship. Well, no, but it does have a degree of explanatory power . . . .) The cost of toppling Saddam wasn't nearly as bad as some had feared, and even with the cost of reconstruction added in it might well be worth it if the result was the toppling or moderation of Arab and Islamist despots. But the Bush Administration seemed to lose all momentum in that direction and without that larger payoff I'm not sure it was worth it. That's not a reason to cut and run now: We're there, and we owe it to the Iraqis, and our troops, to make it a success. But where I was wrong in March of 2003 was in seeing the toppling of Saddam as the beginning, rather than the end, of the stage of post-9/11 history that started with the rout of the Taliban. In other posts, I've quoted Talleyrand to the effect that "you can do anything with bayonets, except sit on them," and that's what we've done. Was that the plan all along? It's hard for me to believe, but if someone had told me that was the plan in March of 2003 I'd have been much less supportive of going into Iraq. Not that it didn't have its benefits.

LAWRENCE V. TEXAS AND CONSENSUAL ADULT INCEST, in a new opinion from the Ohio Supreme Court. Though calling sex between adult steprelatives "incest" seems to stretch the definition a bit. According to Perry Dane, Justice Rehnquist had doubts about this, too, but interestingly most of the comments at Volokh don't. Plus, interesting observations on tribalism, and the Harvard Law Review's being ahead of its time.

UPDATE: Further thoughts from Eugene Volokh.

I HAVEN'T BLOGGED about the Enterprise, Alabama tornado because it's been all over the news, and I don't have anything to add besides "jeez, that sucks." But Will Collier is from Enterprise, and thus has a perspective you won't find in the big media coverage.

THE ECONOMIST on the transatlantic alliance:

It's very difficult to argue that America should bust a gut for Europe ever again. But it's also difficult to watch central and eastern Europe failing to make the safe docking with western Europe that was hoped for ten years ago, and slipping back into the orbit of an exploitative and illiberal Russia. If there is to be hope here, it has to lie with some sort of resurgent American soft power which offers some moral leadership to central and eastern Europe and some political example to Russia.

But it's the "Old Europe" leadership that doesn't like American soft power (or hard power either) and that has given Americans the sense that the alliance has been mostly a one-way street all along.

VAGINA ENVY at Newsweek.

EDWARD LUTTWAK says we should be encouraging the breakup of Iran:

If Iran's economy were strong, ethnic divisions and even religious resentments would matter less. As it is, with at least 20 per cent unemployment and an annual inflation rate of 30 per cent, Iran's economy is scarcely a unifying force.

Viewed from the inside, Iran is hardly the formidable power that some see from the outside. The natural outcome of increasing popular opposition to extremist rulers, of widening ethnic divisions and bitter Sunni resentment of Shia oppression is the break-up of Iran.

There is no reason why Iran should be the only multinational state to resist the nationalist separatism that destroyed the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, divided Belgium in all but name, and has decentralised Spain and even the United Kingdom.

As with the Soviet Union, there is a better alternative to detente with a repulsive regime - and that is to be true to the Wilsonian tradition of American foreign policy by encouraging and helping the forces of national liberation within Iran.

I would like to see the mullahs' regime fall, preferably in the bloodless fashion of the old Soviet Union.

UPDATE: Reader Frieda Hovsepian emails:

I grow up in Iran and I hate Mullahs' more than anything , but to divide Iran like Soviet Union...No way! I can not see that happening. Culturally and Characteristically, Iran is not Soviet Union.

Iranians will rally around even this regime, IF they know Western countries have plans for division of Iran.

People who talk about division of Iran, don't know what Iranian people are made of...Revolution yes, division NO.

I'd be just as happy with revolution, velvet or otherwise. And other readers note that some parts of Iran that aspire to independence, like Baluchistan, might make pretty unpleasant countries if independent.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Related item here. " I’ve always said invasion of Iran would be a terrible mistake, and it would demonstrate a failure to design and conduct a rational policy toward Iran."

MORE: Further thoughts here.

BRENDAN O'NEILL ON GENOCIDE:

Hardly anyone talks openly about a global divide between the savage Third World and the enlightened West anymore. Yet today's genocide-mongering has nurtured a new, apparently acceptable divide between the genocide-executers over there, and the genocide-saviours at home. This new global faultline over genocide is formalised in the international court system. . . . At a time when the West making claims to global moral authority on the basis of enlightenment or democracy has become distinctly unfashionable, the new fashion for genocide-mongering seems to have turned 'genocide' into the one remaining moral absolute, which has allowed today's pretty visionless West to assert at least some authority over the Third World.

I don't think I agree with his analysis, but it's worth reading. And his free-speech point is clearly correct.

DEAN BARNETT: "It’s a subject that’s been strangely on my mind the last few weeks: Which national figures are true believers in what they preach and which ones are low-level or high level frauds?" He offers his thoughts on a number of different pundits and politicians. Here's one: "Andrew Sullivan – Whatever his faults may be, Andrew believes every word he writes and every word he says with every fiber of his being. A tiresome scold? Sure. But a fraud? No way."

Nope. Andrew's sincere when he takes a position, sincere when he switches, and sincere in calling you a hack and a fraud for agreeing with yesterday's position -- or tomorrow's -- today!

PEOPLE ARE ASKING ME if they should use TurboTax or H&R Block's TaxCut for their taxes. I don't have any idea, as I don't use either one -- I used to be a TurboTax guy, but Helen has always done our taxes since we got married, which I find a far superior approach from my perspective.

Anyway, here's a review of the two suggesting that you won't go far wrong with either one. And here's more on the subject.

RED-LIGHT CAMERA UPDATE:

On Thursday, the Lubbock, Texas city council voted to delay installation of red light cameras after a local television station exposed the city's short timing of yellow lights at eight of the twelve intersections where the devices were to be installed.

"Many folks believe this is a money grab and then we found out through KCBD Television there's a discrepancy in timing," Councilman Gary Boren said, as quoted by KCBD.

Earlier this month, the station cited the rule-of-thumb that Lubbock City Engineer Jere Hart asserted as the basis for timing lights at city intersections. At most of the proposed camera intersections, Hart did not follow his own rule. . . .

Short yellows assure a steady flow of red light camera ticket revenue. A Texas Transportation Institute study found that an extra second of yellow time added to the current ITE formula yields a a 53 percent reduction in the number of tickets issued along with a 40 percent reduction in accidents.

Indeed.

IS IT RE-EDUCATION TIME at the University of Wisconsin?

UPDATE: Check out the comment from a student at 1:10 pm.

MICHAEL YOUNG: "Does the New Yorker actually edit Seymour Hersh?"

ANBAR UPDATE: "Iraqi security forces killed dozens of al Qaeda militants who attacked a village in western Anbar province on Wednesday, during fierce clashes that lasted much of the day, police officials said on Thursday."

MAJOR JOHN TAMMES offers his usual Friday roundup of news from Afghanistan. And don't miss last night's Afghanistan podcast.

JULES CRITTENDEN ROUNDS UP SOME GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS that you may have missed.

XENI JARDIN on the RIAA's latest.

EMAIL AND THE FOURTH AMENDMENT: Interesting discussion in the post and comments here.

I think that there's not nearly enough attention paid to chain-of-evidence issues in these cases. It's easy enough to plant evidence in the physical world, but when we're talking about what email people have received, well . . . .

UPDATE: Mickey Kaus flaunts his drug use.

GLOBAL WARMING -- on Mars? National Geographic reports:

Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet's recent climate changes have a natural—and not a human- induced—cause, according to one scientist's controversial theory.

Earth is currently experiencing rapid warming, which the vast majority of climate scientists says is due to humans pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Mars, too, appears to be enjoying more mild and balmy temperatures.

In 2005 data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide "ice caps" near Mars's south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row.

Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun.

"The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars," he said. Abdussamatov believes that changes in the sun's heat output can account for almost all the climate changes we see on both planets.

Right or not, this doesn't matter to me -- as I've noted before, I think we should be trying to minimize our burning of fossil fuels for lots of other reasons. But it does suggest that people should be wary of getting too far ahead of the science. And if this explanation turns out to be correct, overselling global warming could lead to a backlash in which efforts to reduce pollution lose credibility, which would be bad as we should be reducing pollution regardless of global warming.

UPDATE: Martian warming explained.

March 01, 2007

MORE ENTHUSIASM FOR Fred Thompson.

HEH: "Bob Brown uses frequent flyer points to go to Earth Summit."

A REAL American Idol.

A REPORT FROM BAGHDAD:

Aside from security concerns, the order also reduces the huge traffic jams caused by the numerous checkpoints. The downside, if any, is being felt mostly by one particular class of Baghdadis: taxi drivers. They can now work only every other day and still have to live with sluggish traffic and expensive fuel.

Still, things are a long way from perfectly peaceful. Bombs continue to disrupt the calm of Baghdad. The suicide bombings carried out by al-Qaeda constitute the largest number of incidents. At the same time there has been a sharp decline in the number of bombings set off by remote control on the part of the regular insurgents.

As we noted in earlier reports, we feel safer about moving around in the city now than we did a month before. I have recently been to districts in Baghdad where a month or two ago I wouldn’t have thought of going to. In the last week or two I’ve showed my ID to soldiers and policemen in checkpoints dozens of times. A few months ago this was considered an extremely risky thing to do — especially for someone whose ID shows a name and profession such as mine. “Omar” is a pure Sunni name and everyone here knows that scores of young Baghdadi men were killed by death squads just because they had the name.

Read the whole thing.

METHANE OFFSETS?

Plus, a plan for quick Kyoto compliance. I'm skeptical -- but I want to believe!

ANNALEE NEWITZ: "I can tell you exactly how a pointless blog full of poorly written, incoherent commentary made it to the front page on Digg. I paid people to do it."

UPDATE: Michael Arrington thinks this piece is unfair to Digg.

The Glenn and Helen Show: Training the Afghan Army and Police

We talked with Col. David Enyeart, Deputy Commander of Task Force Phoenix, the command dedicated to training the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police.

Col. Enyeart talks about addressing corruption, the much-anticipated Taliban spring offensive (which he calls "make or break for the Taliban") addressing corruption and illiteracy, and the success in recruiting efforts. His conclusion: "This is a winnable war over here."

Also on the call are Mark Finkelstein of Newsbusters, Andrew Lubin of On Point, Scott Kesterson of the Huffington Post, and John Noonan of Op-For.

You can listen directly by clicking here -- no downloads needed -- or you can download the entire file by clicking right here. You can get a lo-fi version suitable for dialup, satellite phone, or whatever by going here and selecting lo-fi, and you can always subscribe for free via iTunes. Visit our show archives at www.glennandhelenshow.com for old episodes or to check for updates.

Music is by Mobius Dick. This podcast was brought to you by Volvo USA.

MEGAN MCARDLE:

And can I just say that the ritual humiliation of obtaining Sudafed from a drugstore sets every liberty-loving fibre of my patriotic American soul quivering for Revolution? I mean, sure, that would mean even more if I weren't already reflexively against our nation's drug laws. But still. Since I bought the stuff three weeks, ago, they've introduced another new wrinkle: now you have to go to the pharmacy counter to show your ID and sign for your frigging decongestant. Next time I get a cold, I fully expect a cavity search and several hours in the interrogation room with Vincent D'onofrio getting all crazy and refusing to let me go to the bathroom.

But it's a full-employment act for Mexican meth labs. And guess who was behind it!

PRAISE FOR PRINCE CHARLES: Well, not really:

You have to hand it to the Prince. There aren’t many people who can manage to be a loudmouth, a danger to the constitution and a buffoon all at the same time. Most of us can manage two of the three. Prince Charles is unique in getting the hat-trick.

That he is wrong, or at the very least a hypocrite, about Big Macs is, however, the least of it. Even if he was right — and by the law of averages he will surely be right about something, one day — his behaviour is an outrage against the constitution and undermines what little credibility the institution of the monarchy has left.

The Prince of Wales has shown over the years that he is simply a loudmouth who cannot resist shooting his mouth off when an opportunity arises. And as he is the heir to throne, such opportunities arise at will.

Please, can't they skip Charles and go straight to Harry?

UPDATE: Reader Christopher Green emails: "You meant William, right?" No, really I meant Harry . . . .

RECONSIDERING NO-KNOCK RAIDS, IN GEORGIA:

A group of lawmakers wants to make it harder for police to use "no-knock" warrants in the wake of a shootout that left an elderly woman dead after plainclothes officers stormed her home unannounced in a search for drugs.

The measure would allow judges to grant the warrants only if officers can prove a "significant and imminent danger to human life."

The measure was prompted by the Nov. 21 shootout between Kathryn Johnston and three police officers during a no-knock search of her Atlanta home. When the officers entered without warning, police say that Johnston, 92, fired a handgun at them and that the officers returned fire, killing her. An autopsy concluded she was shot five or six times.

Narcotics officers said an informant had claimed there was cocaine in the home, but none was found.

Democratic Sen. Vincent Fort, a sponsor of the bill, said the case was a warning that it has become too easy to obtain "no-knock" warrants.

"Every citizen ought to be safe and secure in their homes," Fort said. "A no-knock warrant should be a special warrant, not a standard. And that's what it's evolved into."

As InstaPundit readers know, I agree. I'd like to see federal legislation along these lines, too.

WANT TO PUT THE PAJAMAS MEDIA STRAW POLL WIDGET ON YOUR BLOG? Get it here. You'll get results for all the participating blogs, and for the readers of your own blog.

AN EARMARK LAWSUIT in West Virginia.

PULLING AN OBAMA: McCain puts his foot in it.

Is it my imagination, or is his campaign unravelling all of a sudden?

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION UPDATE:

When the Democratic Congress passed lobbying- and ethics-reform measures last month, it barred lawmakers and their aides from accepting almost all meals from lobbyists. But, as the Wall Street Journal reported [subscription required] recently, hors d'oeuvres—including any food eaten standing up and using a toothpick or one's fingers—remain kosher. The result, say some observers, has been nothing more consequential than a change in the menu. Out: pasta and steak dinners. In: risotto balls, and blinis with smoked salmon and crème fraiche. Congress feels cleaner already.

Switching from entrees to appetizers isn't the only way that lobbyists are getting around the new rules. According to another recent report [subscription required], this one in the New York Times, in the last two months lawmakers have invited lobbyists to pay for a California wine-tasting tour, a trip to Disney World, weekend golf tournaments, concerts by the Who and Bob Seeger, and a range of other fun-filled (if golf and Bob Seeger are your bag) outings. The arrangements are legal because the new rules don't restrict political contributions, meaning lobbyists can still pay to attend a fund-raiser. So rather than paying for the lawmaker directly on these trips, the lobbyist will instead contribute to a political fund-raising committee set up by the lawmaker—which then picks up the tab.

Read the whole thing, and ask yourself if public financing of campaigns -- which is presented as the solution -- will make any more difference, or just result in cash being handed over . . . on toothpicks.

NEWT GINGRICH AT COOPER UNION: "scathing and often hilarious."

Scathing and hilarious are two things he does well.

SO IS THIS A SIGN OF OPTIMISM ABOUT IRAQ? Soros buys 1.9 million shares in Halliburton.

UPDATE: Iraq: The new safe haven for your money! Er, well, sort of . . . .

A DISAPPOINTING "Ass-kicking." Plus questions.

ELECTRONIC TEST TUBE ALIENS get rated as the "gadget of the week" by Popular Mechanics. "Electronic Test Tube Aliens ($15) are either the most cynical and ill-conceived toys on the market, or the world's first truly existential toy."

I DON'T CARE WHAT IT SAYS, there's never anything sexy about a memo from a Dean.

HEY, MAYBE IT'LL BE AL GORE versus Fred Thompson in 2008!

Big electric bills aside, I've already explained why I like Gore.

PAGING HERNANDO DE SOTO:

Call it an economic and political victory for "New Iraq" -- and an indication that we may see more in the future.

This past Monday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's cabinet finally agreed to a reformed "oil law." The cabinet will forward the legislative package to the Iraqi parliament for action later this spring.

The "oil reform" program in Iraq is long overdue, but the Iraqi government also deserves kudos for the effort. Democracy is often a slow, muddled and tedious operation (look at the U.S. Congress). . . .

The Iraqi government should consider two other economic reforms.

A logical follow-on is the establishment of an Iraqi "oil trust" program, similar to the one implemented by the state of Alaska where every qualified citizen gets a share of state oil revenues. An oil trust would put several hundred dollars a year into the pockets of every adult Iraqi -- that serves as an instant economic "fire-starter." The oil trust immediately invests everyone in the economic success of Iraq's new democratic government.

Clarifying and affirming individual property rights is another important reform. Peruvian economist Hernando De Soto's "Mystery of Capital" (published in 2000) argued that Egypt's poor have around $240 billion in "dead capital," most of it tied up in property that they cannot properly mortgage. De Soto said that individual property rights and a legal system that protected contracts would instantly energize Egypt's sclerotic economy.

In 2004, while serving in Iraq, I read a short, unclassified study that made the same argument for Iraq. The potential economic payoff is huge.

Yes. And then we should start enacting some De Soto-style reforms here . . . .

JENNIFER RUBIN ON THE MAN WHO WOULD BE MITT:

The key to understanding Romney is his resume. He had his great success as a turnaround specialist. As founder and CEO of Bain Capital he identified failing companies, saw potential if their direction could be changed, and revamped them for a new and successful future. . . .

He does get points for candor by admitting he is “unlikely to be the top pick for those voters looking for a ‘war/strong leader.’” That may not go over well with supporters of the President. That is ok. Romney seems indifferent to their concerns and is willing to distinguish his brand from Bush’s with one word, the document says, “intelligence.” Maybe this is his cross over appeal to Democrats who think the President is dim.

Not a very positive assessment, overall. You can hear our podcast interview with Romney here.

STILL MORE on whether carbon offsets work, from The Economist. "If you are salving your conscience by buying carbon offsets, which allows you to cheerfully emit 20 times more than the average person, then even a conservatively estimated rebound effect means that carbon offsets are increasing the amount of emissions."

WOW, that was fast. A response to InstaPunk's question on potty-mouth blogging.

HEY, WHY NOT: Stop global warming with alien technology. I mean we've got all those crashed alien spaceships that we captured from Saddam -- what, you think the war was about oil? -- and we might as well put them to good use!

RIDICULE AND ELLIPSIS.

February 28, 2007

TALKS WITH IRAN: An advance transcript.

JIHAD: The (short) motion picture.

THE WASHINGTON POST EDITORIALIZES:

THE BUSH administration has tolerated Egypt's brutal crackdown on domestic dissent and the broader reversal of its democratic spring of 2005 in part because President Hosni Mubarak argues that his adversaries are dangerous Islamic extremists. It's true that the largest opposition movement in Egypt is the Muslim Brotherhood; how dangerous it is can be debated. But what is overlooked is that Mr. Mubarak reserves his most relentless repression not for the Islamists -- who hold a fifth of the seats in parliament -- but for the secular democrats who fight for free elections, a free press, rights for women and religious tolerance.

The latest case in point is a blogger named Abdel Kareem Nabil Soliman, who was sentenced to four years in prison last week on charges of religious incitement, disrupting public order and "insulting the president." A brave and provocative 22-year-old student, Mr. Soliman first achieved notice with postings that denounced riots in Alexandria directed at Egypt's Christian Copt minority. He said the brutality he witnessed was the result of extremist Islamic teachings, in part by his own university, Al-Azhar, which he called "the other face of al-Qaeda." . . .

As a political prisoner, Mr. Soliman will join Ayman Nour, who was sentenced a year ago on fabricated charges after he ran for president against Mr. Mubarak on a liberal democratic platform. As many as 800 members of the Muslim Brotherhood have also been jailed in the past year. This by a government that continues to be one of the largest recipients in the world of U.S. aid, collecting more than $2 billion a year. What do American subsidies support? Not least, the elimination of what would otherwise be the strongest secular democratic movement in the Arab Middle East.

Seems like we're getting a bad deal. (Via Xeni Jardin, who emails: "I wonder how many Americans realize this guy is going to jail in part because he stood up for Egypt's *Christian minority* on his blog? When Americans hear about these free speech cases in developing countries, I think many of us assume the issues at hand have nothing to do with our own cultures or faiths.").

Danny Glover has more.

JAMES LILEKS IS WITHOUT INTERNET AT HOME, and doesn't entirely mind:

At this moment I’m back at the coffee shop where I filed two pieces yesterday morning, then returned at 7 PM to file another. I’ve caught up on everything I need to read, and have realized that I do not have to check sites nine times every ten minutes. I can catch up Achewood (always brilliant, but I loved this) and the rest of my imaginary friends, and then I can close the machine and do something else. It’s remarkable the things you can get up to, once you leave the house.

I'm enjoying a bit of that, using the "scheduled posting" feature of Movable Type to let me stay away from the computer for longer periods. It is kind of nice. And useful, since I was busy doing stuff like checking in with the Insta-Mother-in-Law at the rehab center.

THOUGHTS ON HYPOCRISY AND POLITICS, from Eric Scheie.

A "SCIENCE FICTION NIGHTMARE?" At least there are no zombies.

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: "The law reviews have made a hash of the manuscript submission process, which once more raises the question of why legal scholarship remains dependent on the whims of twenty-something second and third year law students. Personally, I plan to stick to books and symposia articles until the law reviews get together and coordinate their requirements."

I've been hearing that kind of thing from a lot of people lately. And it may be one of the pressures on faculty scholarship to evolve beyond the traditional law-review forms. (Via Larry Solum).

A BEE EPIDEMIC.

SARAH PULLMAN WRITES on treating Seasonal Affective Disorder.

BRIAN FLEMMING REPORTS ON more YouTube censorship. Flemming comments: "If YouTube turns into a war of various interest groups organizing to red-flag expressions of ideas they don't like -- and YouTube's policy is to give in to that pressure automatically whenever it gets high enough -- then YouTube is going to suck. YouTube really needs to fix their complaint system."

That sounds right to me.

A TIMELY WARNING:

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke renewed a warning to the U.S. Congress on Wednesday that failure to take action soon to prepare for the retirement of aging Baby Boomers could lead to serious economic harm.

Bernanke did not address the outlook for U.S. interest-rate policy or Tuesday's collapse in global stock markets in his prepared testimony to the House of Representatives' Budget Committee, which were nearly identical to remarks he delivered to a Senate panel last month.

"A vicious cycle may develop in which large (budget) deficits lead to rapid growth in debt and interest payments, which in turn adds to subsequent deficits," Bernanke said.

Bernanke told Congress that over time, the United States needed to move toward fiscal policies that were sustainable and that would promote more saving to support the Social Security retirement program without imposing undue costs on taxpayers.

However, he offered no specific policy.

Perhaps we should work on a longevity dividend.

A NOT-SO-MAGNIFICENT obsession.

GLOBAL WARMING SOLVED: By IowaHawk.

PROPOSING AN EXPERIMENT, at InstaPunk. "I propose an exercise to be perfomed by those who have the software and expertise to carry it out. The exercise is this: Search six months' worth of content, posts and comments, of the 20 most popular blogs on the right and the left. The search criteria are George Carlin's infamous '7 Dirty Words.'"

MORE ON CARBON OFFSETS, from Tyler Cowen.

SOME THOUGHTS ON WHO BUSH WOULD NOMINATE if he got another Supreme Court pick.

A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT.

A QUESTION from the New York Times.

Why don't they start asking similar questions about the Joyce Foundation . . . ?

AT ECOTOTALITY: "Why the Gore story matters."

UPDATE: In all of this, we're just following in Eric Alterman's footsteps. Here's what he wrote in the September, 2004 Atlantic Monthly (not available for free, alas):

Needless to say, Hollywood offers nearly limitless opportunities for anyone seeking to expose hypocrisy in the lifestyles of the rich and progressive. Laurie David, who dedicates herself to fighting for improved fuel-economy standards and reviles the owners of SUVs as terrorist enablers, gives herself a pass when it comes to chartering one of the most wasteful uses of fossil-based fuels imaginable: a private plane. (She's not just a limousine liberal; she's a Gulfstream liberal.) One night I visited the home of the former TV star Heather Thomas (The Fall Guy) and her husband, the entertainment lawyer and philanthropist Skip Brittenham. I drove past SUVs and assorted luxury vehicles on what felt like a quarter-mile-long driveway to a mansion large enough to house one of the small Amazonian villages the Brittenhams want to save. Just the energy consumed by the house and all the vehicles would power a sizable chunk of Amazonia. And this was nothing next to the Sunset Strip home of Stewart and Lynda Resnick, where I attended a book party for the journalist and progressive candidate-conspirator-hostess Arianna Huffington. Guests picked at smoked-salmon and caviar hors d'oeuvres beneath twenty-foot ceilings supported by towering Greek columns. Each gilded room was larger than most New York City apartments. The house would not he out of place if plunked down as an extension of Versailles, save for the enormous bust of Napoleon in one of the salons. The Resnicks, Lynda told me, are the "largest farmers in America"; they are the country's biggest grower of fruits and nuts, and a member of the Sunkist cooperative (she urged me to try the selection of new Sunkist beverages at the well-stocked bar); they also own the Franklin Mint. Later I listened to her refer to the celebrity-laden crowd as "disenfranchised."

But it's a rich lode of hypocrisy, and it's nowhere close to mined out. And who knew that Eric Alterman was the original coiner of the term "Gulfstream liberal?"

ANOTHER UPDATE: Also in 2001, Jonathan Rauch coined the more-euphonious "Learjet liberal," though he wasn't really talking about global warming or energy efficiency.

And there's more, over at Creative Destruction.

MORE: Don Surber comments on the coverage:

After reading the Editorialist’s coverage at the Washington Post of Al Gore’s overuse of electricity, I don’t want to hear about Republican hypocrisy ever again.

If Al Gore were a Republican, the story of his consuming 20 times the national average while lecturing the rest of us on cutting back on our energy use would be front page news from coast-to-coast. Late-nite comedians would have a field day. The editorial pages would puff up about Republican hypocrisy.

Instead we get excuses, excuses, excuses. . . .

As a proud member of the mainstream media, let me suggest that this double-standard — this refusal to hold Al Gore accountable for his actions which are contradictory to his words — only feeds the belief that the media is biased in favor of liberals — particularly born-to-the-manor, overfed, limousine liberals who consume 22,000 kilowatts of electricity each year in just one of his three homes.

Well, look at the kind of people who own newspapers . . . .

AND YET IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE PART OF THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE:

The government is not denying the fact that it knew what was happening. Nor is it saying the plaintiffs were wronged but are asking for too much money. The government is instead arguing that it had no duty to come forward.

Remember that.

MAYBE THIS IS WHY I'VE BEEN FEELING SO CHEERFUL LATELY:

If there's one thing that mitigates the annoyance of having to witness the antics of the current wave of hair-shirt prophets, it's the hours of harmless fun that their hypocrisy never fails to provide. Only recently, we've had Gore's house to condemn, Feinstein's jets to gawp at, and now, delightfully, we have Prince Charles' pies to savor:

Via the London Evening Standard, we learn that the prince who would ban McDonald's has a few guilty secrets of his own. It turns out that a Big Mac "contains fewer calories, fats and salt than some products in [Charles'] own organic Duchy Originals food range". The horror!

Mmm. Pie. More on Prince Charles here.

A GUIDE TO PODCASTS AND PODCASTING, from Mark Glaser.

THOUGHTS ON FREE SPEECH, from Ann Althouse.

UPDATE: Still more on free speech, here.

SOME CRITICISM of the U.S. News law school rankings. I think they're modestly useful, but just remember that their chief purpose is to sell magazines.

And yes, I realize that the same observation applies to everything you read in magazines, etc.

MORE PRAISE FOR JOHN EDWARDS, from Doug Weinstein.

UPDATE: Rand Simberg charges historical revisionism.

PUTTING PELOSI ON THE SPOT:

Republicans plan to force a floor vote on Rep. William Jefferson's move to the Homeland Security Committee in an unprecedented maneuver to force Democrats to go on the record supporting their embattled colleague who is the target of a federal bribery investigation.

House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) pledged to call for a recorded vote on the House floor when Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) introduces a resolution to make the Jefferson move official.

Pelosi removed Jefferson from the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee in response to Justice Department allegations that the Louisiana Democrat had accepted $100,000 in bribes and stored $90,000 of them in his freezer. The speaker then gave Jefferson a seat on the Homeland Security, and Democrats agreed to the change in a closed-door caucus in February.

"The idea that Homeland Security is less important than the tax-writing committee is ludicrous," Blunt said Wednesday.

You could see this one coming.

A MESSAGE FROM General Petraeus.

IN THE MAIL: Daniel Drezner's new book, All Politics is Global, on international politics and regulation. Looks interesting -- though the type's a bit small -- and it's certainly well-blurbed.

A LOOK AT "GREEN" OSCAR GIFT BAGS, and the tax code.

MORE GLOBAL WARMING HYPOCRISY:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein offers plenty of tips on how California households can combat global warming, such as carpooling and running only a full dishwasher.

But one bit of information Feinstein declines to share is the number of times that she flew last year on her husband's Gulfstream jet, which burns much more fuel per passenger-mile than commercial airliners.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger also has asked constituents to do their part to conserve energy — including cutting summertime power consumption — even though he takes to the skies on leased executive jets.

Aides say there is nothing contradictory between the pro-green pronouncements and the flying habits of the Democratic senator and Republican governor.

Some environmentalists aren't so sure. "There appears to be a discrepancy between calling on people to make personal reductions and using a private jet that exacerbates the problem," Clean Air Watch President Frank O'Donnell said.

Gee, you think?

MICKEY KAUS looks at bipartisan wishful thinking on Iraq.

LAST MONTH AT THE CONSUMER ELECTRONICS SHOW, I REPORTED on Sony's new Internet HDTV plans. Now Sony is introducing the TVs that go with the plan.

ILYA SOMIN HAS THOUGHTS on the new Iraq oil deal.

HATEFUL BLOG COMMENTS DON'T MATTER: Except when they do.

A FAREWELL TO BLOGGING, at Seixon.

MORE ON CARBON OFFSETS, at The Economist: "I find it hard to believe that Mr Gore has actually reduced his carbon output 'as much as possible'—and if Mr Gore so believes, I invite him to take a train up to New York, where I will show him what a more carbon efficient lifestyle looks like. The carbon offsets, on the other hand, sound like a very reasonable plan. That is, they did until I began thinking about them. . . . Obviously, the same is true of individual conservation efforts. Thats why any attempt to abate global warming has to be massive. Huge numbers of people in the rich world have to fly less, drive less, consume less, and live in smaller houses. If Mr Gore really wants to encourage this (as I do), then he should try leading by example. "

Read the whole thing.

February 27, 2007

UH OH: "Stock markets around the Asia-Pacific region opened sharply lower Wednesday after a dizzying sell-off in China sent global markets into a tailspin."

Let's hope things settle down soon.

ADVICE TO AL GORE DEFENDERS: Start here!

UPDATE: No, really, that's a better approach than the one you've been taking.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Whatever you do, don't listen to Jim Treacher though.

WHY IS DONALD RUMSFELD LAUGHING?

JOHN MCCAIN'S PROBLEM:

Two words:

McCain-Feingold.

The fundamental difference between McCain 2000 and McCain 2008 is that he put his name on a law that forbids people from speaking out against their congressman within 60 days of an election.

Wrong on abortion? That has not stopped Rudy or Mitt.

Wrong on gay marriage? Rudy lived with a gay couple after his second wife kicked him out of the house.

Gun control? It has not stopped Rudy or Mitt.

McCain-Feingold.

That is a show-stopper. Ever step in fresh dog-doo? The smell sticks to the shoe all day. That is what McCain-Feingold is to the senator from Arizona.

He is no longer John McCain. He is McCain-Feingold. . . . Americans do not like to be told to shut up.

McCain-Feingold told Americans to shut up.

Even Feingold could not run with it. He should be Obama. Instead, he is stuck on the sidelines because of McCain-Feingold.

I think that's right.

DUKE (NON) RAPE UPDATE:

Defense attorneys have continued to scrutinize Meehan’s data, however, and today’s motion reveals that they have uncovered even more DNA—from additional unidentified males—that Meehan’s amended report failed to include. . . .

Mike Nifong obtained the indictments of three people on a charge of rape, in which the accuser’s then-present version (her April 6 statement) claimed that the crime had included anal rape. Even if North Carolina did not possess an Open Discovery law (which required turning over of all material to the defense), and even if North Carolina law did not require turning over of all test results obtained from a non-testimonial order to the defense, how would it not be exculpatory to have “discovered the DNA of at least two males in the accuser’s rectum that did not match the Defendants, their lacrosse teammates, or anyone else who provided a reference DNA sample”?

After all, this is the same Mike Nifong who in a 2000 case dismissed an indictment on rape because “results of DNA testing exclude the defendant as the perpetrator of this crime.”

The politics were different then. But it's starting to look as if Nifong should wind up in jail himself. This goes way beyond simply prosecuting a weak case.

EXPUNGING COMMENTS ABOUT DICK CHENEY, at the Huffington Post. Finally, an assassination strategy that some people can get behind . . . .

WOW, lots of lefty email about the Al Gore story, charging lies, "swiftboating," and smears. Hmm. Is the story a lie? Well, there's this:

Kalee Kreider, a spokesperson for the Gores, did not dispute the Center's figures, taken as they were from public records.

"Swiftboating" seems to mean the disclosure of truths that are, er, inconvenient for Democrats. Likewise "smears." And, actually, in lefty blogland parlance these days, "lies" pretty much come out the same way. All definitions are permitted the definer, so long as they are clear, but don't expect me to be impressed with this batch.

UPDATE: But he's got Richard Cohen.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Bill Hobbs notes that the "smears" seem to be flowing the other way. That's not unusual.

Plus, perspective from Les Jones: "Our electric and water bill was $79.68 and our natural gas bill was $75.72. Gore is using roughly 2000% of the energy of our family of four in a house that's roughly 600% bigger, so basically three times as much energy even after adjusting for square footage. Does he have a 24 hour disco or something?"

MORE: This WSJ item says that the figures from TCPR overstated Gore's energy consumption somewhat, though the difference isn't huge. He's still using a lot.

CARL LEVIN SOUNDING TOUGH: “I think we ought to take action on all fronts including Syria.” Go figure.

UPDATE: Video posted now.

A LESS THAN PERFECT RECORD for Nancy Pelosi so far:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is discovering the cold truth about governing with a slim majority: It's much easier to promise behavioral change for Congress than to deliver it.

Pelosi vowed that five-day workweeks would be a hallmark of a harder-working Democratic majority. So far, the House has logged only one.