Instapundit.com - January 13, 2008 - January 19, 2008 Archives

January 19, 2008

FOX NEWS FADES?

JAMES LILEKS: "You can say this for winter: when it’s five below at one in the morning and the wind makes worried moans, it’s good to be inside with a fire and a toddy and similar boons of civilization." Plus, a Jessica Rabbit reference.

FROM JACK BALKIN, A LOOK AT which American legal blogs are banned in China.

FOX, CNN, AND NBC HAVE CALLED IT FOR MCCAIN. Huckabee is second, and Fred Thompson still seems to be holding onto third. I think this is pretty big -- If McCain can win South Carolina convincingly, he can win conservatives, and if Huckabee can't win in South Carolina, where can he win? And a third-place finish is good enough to keep Thompson going, I think -- especially when a lot of his votes come out of Huckabee's hide, since Thompson clearly isn't a Huckabee fan.

UPDATE: I'm watching Huckabee's concession speech and all of a sudden he's talking about the evils of big government.

ANOTHER UPDATE: We're at my dad's and he's happy that Romney's fourth, so he can't claim "a bronze." The Olympic analogies are getting old.

"DEAR THIRD WORLD FARMER:" Ouch.

HUCKABEE COMES IN FOURTH among non-evangelicals.

OOPS: "AMERICA’S favourite television presenter is paying a painful price for her intervention in the US presidential campaign last month. Oprah Winfrey has been dubbed a 'traitor' by some of her female fans for supporting Barack Obama instead of Hillary Clinton."

AT THE MOMENT, THOMPSON IS IN THIRD PLACE, but it's close with only 33% of the vote in. Here's a report that it's gloomy at Fred HQ. He gave a great speech, though. I don't see why he'd quit the race before Super Tuesday, especially if he pulls 3rd in South Carolina.

UPDATE: 68% in now, but still about the same so far.

DUNCAN HUNTER IS QUITTING. Our podcast interview with Hunter is here.

STEPHEN GREEN is drunkblogging.

SUNDAYS WITH DAD, AND MORE: At The Line Is Here, an "Anti-Nanny-State collective."

A RUBE GOLDBERG APPROACH to web design. Just watch for a few seconds after it loads. (Via Samizdata).

BASED ON EXIT POLLS, CNN says it's a close race for #1 in South Carolina between McCain and Huckabee and for #3 between Thompson and Romney, but too close to call.

HOW THE WORLD views Obama. "The European right appears more enthusiastic about the liberal Obama than the left. . . . The Latin American left, sensing that the story of racial mobility implicit in Obama's personal story is too good an ad for American society, has chosen to moderate its embrace of the black American senator. "

FOX HAS JUST CALLED NEVADA FOR HILLARY. Obama's behind, but not all that close. A fairly big win for Hillary, I think -- judging by how stressed she and Bill have seemed this week, they obviously thought a loss in Nevada would have been very damaging.

SOME MODEST PROGRESS FOR CIVIL RIGHTS IN TENNESSEE: "The state Senate voted 24-6 on Wednesday to authorize Tennesseans with pistol carry permits to take their weapons into establishments that sell alcohol, so long as they don't drink themselves."

I'M BEING SUPPRESSED: "Bill Clinton, speaking at a Vegas YMCA last night, made more charges against Obama and claimed to have, with Chelsea, personally witnessed voter suppression by the Culinary Workers." Hey, some of them carry cleavers.

HDMI: THE FULL STORY: Here's part one. And here's part two.

WILL SUPER-DELEGATES sink the Democrats? I've made a similar point myself. Too much insider politics may turn off Democratic voters, particularly if Hillary is the beneficiary.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: "After reading most of the McCain animus on conservative blogs, I’m a little worried that some of it goes over the top. . . . McCain’s past support for the flawed immigration bill, McCain-Feingold, and opposition to tax cuts, as well as temper flare-ups at those who questioned his conservative fides are legitimate concerns. But many believe that the two key issues right now are winning, in conservative fashion, the war in all its theaters, and controlling out-of-control spending. He seems in the forefront there. Moreover it seems odd to fault him for telling the truth—however politically unwise—that all the jobs in the automotive industry simply aren’t coming back as before."

STANLEY KURTZ: "The mainstream media is now the key to the battle against Canada’s so-called human rights commissions. Despite the sensation on the blogosphere, the Ezra Levant inquisition is being ignored by big media in Canada, and here."

TAKING "PREPAREDNESS" TO THE NEXT LEVEL. Reader James Rummel writes:

I read the Popular Mechanics article that you linked to, the one that discusses the various Terminators that have been introduced over the years. Thank you kindly for brining it to my attention.

Speaking as an old shooting enthusiast, I noticed while watching the two available episodes of Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles that the various weaponry deployed against the kill-crazy deathbots wasn't very effective. They are just too well armored, too well built. But I suppose a .50 sniper rifle would still make some holes since it was designed to defeat armor.

I have wondered why the anti-gun lobby wants to ban the .50's, even though they have yet to be used in a crime. Maybe they have sold out to the enemy of all mankind in the hopes that they will be spared? It makes as much sense as any for their irrational hysteria against these weapons.

I also noticed that the Terminators in the TV show will shut down for a few minutes if they come in to contact with electric current, even current as mild as standard house current. Popular Mechanics back in October mentioned a new TASER device that could be fired from a standard shotgun. This increased the range from 15 feet to over 100. It might very well be the only hope for mankind!

You might be wondering why I am so interested in the subject, a TV show based off of a fictional war where a computer network named Skynet nukes most of humanity before trying to exterminate the survivors. But did you know that the British have already set up a military satellite communications system which is named Skynet?

Right about now I bet you're thinking that adding a .50 Barrett and a few TASERS to your home defense arsenal might not be a bad idea.

"Adding?"

UPDATE: Reader Darren Duvall, MD emails:

Your correspondent Mr Rummel is incorrect that the .50 BMG has not been used in a crime. A police officer was killed in Colorado with one in 1995 or 1996.

I'm not anti-50 cal, but it does pay to be as accurate as possible when it comes to contentious issues. The VPC and their hoplophobic ilk are against .50 caliber rifles because they are a small segment of the firearms market that can be marginalized, period. It is entirely accurate to say that they are virtually never used to commit crimes.

My personal choice for an anti-Terminator weapon is an EFP. A molten copper slug at 5,000 fps beats the Taser. If the Terminators attack, it may turn out that the Iranian defense plants are our last, best hope. Weird world.

Heh.

ERROR CORRECTION UPDATE: The above contains an error:

This is absolutely untrue. The incident he refers to is the death of Deputy Sheriff Timothy Mossbrucker in Jefferson County, Colorado in April of 1995. Deputy Mossbrucker was killed by Albert Petrosky as the deputy responded to a "shot fired" call at a small shoping mall. The suspect had gone there to kill his wife and her boyfriend (her boss) after he found out they were having an affair.(he did kill both of them) He then waited in the parking lot for the cops to show up (I suspect so his death would be a suicide by cops). Deputy Mossbrucker was the first unit in. The suspect shot him three times through the windshield of his police unit killing him instantly with an 7.39 SKS rifle.

The problem was, Petrosky had thrown every gun he owned into the bed of his pickup to go have his 15 minutes of glory. Included in those firearms was a LAR Grizzley big bore 50 BMG. There were also 5 empty 50 caliber casings in the bed of the truck that probably were thrown into the bed the last time he had been out shooting the rifle. There is no evidence to indicate he fired the 50 BMG during his shootout with the cops.

The suspect was taken into custody a short time later but committed suicide in his jail cell before he was ever brought to trial.

The reason they claim he killed the deputy is the press was allowed access to the crime scene about an hour after the shooting and the photographer took a photo of the LAR Grizzley and the fifty cal ammo. He just created the headlines "Deputy Killed By 50 BMG" for the next day's paper.

That's from John Burtt of the Fifty Cal Institute, via Prof. Joseph Olson.

VOTING PROBLEMS in South Carolina?

UPDATE: Reader Sean Brittain sends this report:

I went out at about 1:00 to vote. There had been a total 220 voters at our polling station when we got there. The weather is getting worse, so I will be surprised if the number of voters at our polling station doubles by closing time. I'm a Fred supporter, so I've been happy to hear about his resurgence. However, I didn't see any Thompson signs around the school where I voted. The only candidates represented along the road where McCain, Huckabee and Romney. I'm not sure what any of this means (if anything), but I thought I'd send it your way on the outside chance that it's a useful data point.

Thanks. And here's more on those voting machine problems.

SPARED GITMO, FOR NOTHING: Terror Informant for FBI Allegedly Targeted Agents.

REMEMBERING the original Mazda RX-7. "Like the Datsun 240Z a decade before, the RX-7 revolutionized the sports car market. With performance easily on a par with the Porsche 924 and close to that of the contemporary Chevrolet Corvette, but at a vastly lower price, the RX-7 became a legend. It was an immediate smash sales success, became the first sports car for a generation of young drivers, and quickly established itself as a force on the race track." I had one of those -- a 1980 model -- and it was a great car, though with some rough spots. What I like about the RX-8 is that it recaptures the feel of the original RX-7, but without the rough spots.

DAVID BERNSTEIN on Ronald Reagan and "States' Rights."

THIS SEEMS LIKE BIG NEWS: "The CIA on Friday admitted that cyberattacks have caused at least one power outage affecting multiple cities outside the United States." (Via Slashdot).

BILL BRADLEY is providing constantly updated coverage of the Nevada and S.C. contests.

Fox just called Nevada for Mitt Romney. Huckabee's currently showing #5, behind McCain, Thompson, and Ron Paul, though only a small percentage of votes are actually in.

UPDATE: Bob Krumm is in South Carolina and says people care more about the snow that's falling than about the primary now: "Snow-just the mention of snow- might make all turnout predictions worthless here."

It's also snowing in Atlanta. Not a flake here, so far.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A report from Nevada reader Charles Chase -- click "read more" to read it.

January 18, 2008

CALIFORNIA BUDGET BLUES. "But lost in the furor is any self-reflection, such as why would UC Davis recently pay John Edwards, multimillionaire trial lawyer, $50,000 plus to give a brief lecture on poverty? Such questions are never answered, much less raised, since the problem is always framed as a matter of a shortage of income, never a surfeit of unnecessary expenditure. . . . At some point we Californians should ask ourselves, how we inherited a state with near perfect weather, the world's richest agriculture, plentiful timber, minerals, and oil, two great ports at Los Angeles and Oakland, a natural tourist industry from Carmel to Yosemite, industries such as Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and aerospace—and serially managed to turn all of that into the nation's largest penal system, periodic near bankruptcy, and sky-high taxes."

SOMEHOW, I THINK THIS WAS OBAMA'S PLAN ALL ALONG: "John Edwards and Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized Barack Obama's praise of the Republican Party and Ronald Reagan - an anathema for many Democrats, particularly union members considered crucial to winning Nevada's Democratic caucuses Saturday."

PAUL STARR WARNS DEMOCRATS THAT they can still blow the election. Luckily for them, they only have to run against the Republicans, or they'd really be in trouble. . . .

HOW TO write a novel in two months (while still blogging).

THOUGHTS ON men, women, and retirement.

UPDATE: Somehow, I'm reminded of this Maureen Dowd column from 2001.

TALIBAN WEBSITES hosted in the U.S.?

REWIRING YOUR BRAIN to support multitasking. I'm pretty sure I've done that . . . .

BUSH'S STIMULUS PLAN. Compare to Hillary's.

Plus, criticism of "stimulus" plans from the Republican Study Committee. I'll just note that there are worse things than recessions, and trying too hard to stop one may be worse than letting the business cycle run its course.

UPDATE: I'm reminded of these 2001 words of wisdom from Andrea See: "This story reads like the government's trying to be comforting about the economic trough we're in. Anyone with half a brain (and did a basic class in economics) would know economies move in cycles. We've had the high point, now it's time for the low. Sucks as it does, it really needs to happen."

FRED THOMPSON RESPONDS TO HUCKABEE on the Constitution.

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh defends Huckabee.

JAY GRODNER UPDATE: The anti-military lawyer who keyed a Marine's car had his day in court and it wasn't pretty. Blackfive has the story.

THOMAS EDSALL: Will the GOP blindside the Dems on national security?

Hmm. Blindside? How can it be blindsiding when, as Edsall says, "Republicans are making no secret of their intentions in the general election." I guess if you take advantage of a national-security blind spot, you can still blindside, even without secrecy. None is so blind as he who will not see . . . .

UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

RON BAILEY: "I can remember in the 1980s when all the 'smart' folks were panicked about the Japanese buying up all the best real estate such as the Rockefeller Center. The American sellers laughed all the way to the bank in that deal. Sheesh!"

SOMEWHERE, T.M. LUTAS IS SAYING I TOLD YOU SO: "Iraq's army and police could be ready to take over security in all 18 provinces by the end of this year as the U.S. military moves toward a less prominent role in the country, U.S. officials said on Thursday."

Well, he's got more reason than most.

"MAD COW" DISEASE: The 21st Century's Swine Flu?

High numbers of future deaths in the UK from the human form of mad cow disease are unlikely, researchers have said.

The Imperial College team calculate there will be around 70 future deaths.

They say the worst case scenario could see another 600 deaths, but that this is unlikely.

(Via An Englishman's Castle).

JONAH GOLDBERG IS CURRENTLY #1 on Amazon. I hope he sends a nice thank-you note to all the lefty bloggers who have been savaging him. I don't think he could have done it without them!

BYLINES OF BRUTALITY: "As Casualties Mount, Some Question The Emotional Stability of Media Vets."

MATTHEW YGLESIAS WRITES:

One thing that doesn't get talked about enough is that people in Washington are pretty out of touch with the basic economic picture in the United States. Not in the usual, pat, pseudo-populist "oh you're out of touch" sense but in a pretty literal one -- the DC metro area is both quite affluent and economically unusual.

That's right, notwithstanding the D.C. area housing bust. But the difference is even greater than Yglesias suggests. Bad news for the country is usually good news for the DC area, since it tends to promote more government programs and spending, meaning more jobs not so much for government workers as for lobbyists, contractors, and other hangers-on, And journalists and pundits!

In the comments, people talk about different parts of the country and how they're doing. Around Knoxville, things aren't too bad. Houses aren't selling very fast, but in my opinion that's partly because people are asking too much. In a development near me, people are trying to sell houses that they bought a couple of years ago for $300-350K for over $400K. They're actually asking more, in some cases, than the developer is asking for brand-new houses in the neighborhood; the brand-new houses, meanwhile, seem to still be selling. Meanwhile, I see lots of help-wanted signs. Things may slow down, but at the moment it's certainly not visible to the casual observer. In other places -- Cleveland, for example, or Detroit -- it certainly is.

EZRA LEVANT UPDATE: The suicide of reason in Canada.

AMY ALKON: "For people who are supposedly about seeing women 'as people first,' these feminists sure are all about pussy!"

RAND SIMBERG WRITES in defense of (Fred Thompson's) laziness. "As an engineer, I'm extremely impressed with his efficiency. "

January 17, 2008

SAFE, LEGAL, AND RARE: No one left to gloat to.

TOM CRUISE explains Scientology.

LIMBAUGH ENDORSES FRED THOMPSON: Well, David Limbaugh, anyway.

BRING IT ON: "Breakthrough Could Mean 40-Hour Laptop Batteries."

TEN YEARS AFTER MONICAGATE. Plus, James Taranto on The Lewinsky Decade.

IF Y0U MISSED IT ON XM SATELLITE RADIO, you can listen to this week's PJM Political online now.

MY EARLIER POST ON SCIENCE EDUCATION produced this email from reader Jenn Oates:

Glenn, I teach science at a middle-class high school in Elk Grove, CA—it’s a suburb of Sacramento. Many of my students—entirely too many—come into my 9th grade classroom woefully unprepared for even the most basic rigors of high school science. They do not study. They do not do homework. They do not get the direct connection between how much effort you put into something and the quality of the results. They do not know the difference between an inch and a centimeter. They have trouble with the simplest algebraic calculations (like f=ma). They pay no attention whatsoever (beyond the Al Gore school of bad science) to what is going on in the universe, so much of what I teach has no brain Velcro to stick to. Worst of all? They are embarrassingly incurious. They really don’t care, and if what I do isn’t magically fun, they’re not interested. I work very hard to make what I do interesting and relevant, but they can’t be bothered. My graduate work in science and my efforts thereof mean nothing to them. Not all of them, of course, but enough.

Still, I am expected to turn every student into a science genius-in-the-making. Right. I can do that. Give me better prepared students and perhaps I could.. But it isn’t a Science or Math problem, it’s an attitude problem on the part of the students—their education is excellent, as our district has very high standards. What they make of it is, sadly, too often…not.

It’s quite discouraging. What is the answer? Let me totally revamp the educational system in California and I might be able to begin to address the problem. J

Thanks for keeping things like this in the forefront…

Kids used to be more excited by science. But back then science was doing more visibly exciting things -- moon flights, etc. -- and got more favorable, and modestly more substantive, mass-media coverage. There's still good science coverage now, but it's more of a niche item, I think.

NO ITUNES REQUIRED: LOTS OF TV SHOWS FOR FREE DOWNLOAD, including episode one of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I actually watched the first two episodes of that show, and I think it's pretty good.

ROGER SIMON: Will new media destroy Hollywood?

A MEMBER OF CONGRESS unprepared for discussion? I'm shocked.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL looks at Republican candidates' tax plans.

THOUGHTS ON AFGHANISTAN, from Herschel Smith.

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: Huckabee going off the rails: "Mike Huckabee joins Mitt Romney on my personal list of candidates for whom I would not vote even if the only alternative is Hillary Clinton."

MORE ON THE DELIGHTFUL Mazda Furai. I think it should inspire the RX-9.

TOM MAGUIRE notes an anti-war coincidence.

IS THE GOLD MARKET topping out?

ADVICE TO MIKE HUCKABEE: Read your bible.

CAR DIAGNOSIS -- and even emissions testing -- with a $300 add-on.

HAPPY MONICAVERSARY! And Rogers Cadenhead has thoughts on Matt Drudge as "My generation's Edward R. Murrow."

IN RESPONSE TO MY EARLIER POST on the tiny ASUS Eee PC, a reader notes this article from the Wall Street Journal, in which Walt Mossberg says it's cool, but (1) it's too small; and (2) he doesn't like Linux. "Too small" is in the eye of the beholder, but it seems just big enough to work to me -- as a reader said earlier, it's big enough for surfing and doing email, which is what most people do. I'd call it a second or third computer for geeks, or an inexpensive computer for a kid, but not a main computer for most people. As for the Linux -- the basic functions are easy enough to use, and most people won't go beyond that. And you can install Windows XP if you want.

I just had one of our IT guys in my office, though, and he was immediately taken with it and said he was going to buy one posthaste. So did one of my colleagues. On the other hand, if you wait a bit they're going to put out a Wimax-enabled version. And if you want some data on my experience with reliability, ruggedness, etc. over a longer term, well, stay tuned. But it does seem to work fine, and it's cute as a bug's ear. For $399 that's not a bad start.

OLD MEDIA HACK ATTACKS BLOGOSPHERE, GETS PRAISE FROM OLD MEDIA: Janet Maslin offers a charitable review of Lee Siegel's Against the Machine, but even she has to include this part:

The vindictiveness and disproportionate influence of the blogosphere is a particularly sore subject. Who is it that “rewrote history, made anonymous accusations, hired and elevated hacks and phonies, ruined reputations at will, and airbrushed suddenly unwanted associates out of documents and photographs”? Mr. Siegel’s immediate answer is Stalin. But he alleges that the new power players of the blogosphere have appropriated similar powers.

Mr. Siegel himself became a great big blog-attack casualty when, in what he wishfully calls “my rollicking misadventure in the online world,” he was caught pseudonymously praising himself on the Web site of The New Republic, where he had been a particularly savage and reckless blogger. One of the improbable virtues of “Against the Machine” is that it presents a rigorously sane, fair and illuminating incarnation of its more often hotheaded author.

If all bloggers had the low standards evidenced by Lee Siegel -- and, more recently, The New Republic -- maybe he'd have a point. But some people just weren't made to blog, and they seem particularly angry at the blogosphere. Meanwhile, I guess we should brace ourselves for an onslaught of Andrew Keen-style young fogies.

FRED THOMPSON vs. everybody.

ABOUT TIME: A move toward free wi-fi at the Knoxville airport. Jack Lail likes the idea.

IN THE MAIL: Michael Shermer's The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics. Looks quite interesting.

MORE ON the state of science education. It's a cliche to say that if our schools thought science was as important as varsity sports, we'd be doing a lot better. But it's a cliche because it's true . . . .

THE WASHINGTON POST ENDORSES unilateral military action.

STILL MORE on The New York Times and the "murderous vet" canard. The NYT wouldn't publish this sort of thing about other groups even if it were statistically supportable, for fear of promoting prejudice; in this case, however, they're willing to run with it even when it isn't statistically supported. Which tells us something about their priorities, I guess.

UPDATE: Reader Matt Bodenstedt emails:

Perhaps some enterprising young journalist will endeavor to tell the stories of young men and women whose lives were on the wrong track, joined the military, and can now rightly be considered among America’s finest. I’ll bet they’d find many, many more such stories out of the pool of Iraq/Afghanistan vets than the 121 “murderers.”

Interesting idea. Perhaps it might slip by an editor if they sell it as "charmingly retro."

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here.

MORE: Ouch: "The article embraced the hoariest of overwrought clichés - the US combat vet as psychotic killer. But on what evidence? None at all. Indeed, it's impossible to take issue with the statistics cited by reporters Deborah Sontag and Lisette Alvarez - because their article doesn't have any."

And another ouch, here.

IN BRITAIN, treating terrorists like pedophiles. Interesting approach.

WHAT'S UP, DOC? TREATING OSTEOPOROSIS with genetically engineered carrots.

PRACTICING WHAT THEY PREACH, I GUESS: "Anti-war Groups Retreat."

THOUGH AT THE TIME IT WAS BLAMED ON TAX-CUTTING REAGANITES, the Minnesota bridge collapse turns out to have been the result of a design error. More on that, and on the plans to replace it, at the link.

A LOOK AT online reputation.

And some related thoughts from TigerHawk. Plus, I've had some more extensive thoughts here.

JOHN TIERNEY ON FEAR OF TERRORISM: The problem, of course, is that there's no real way to establish what's a "proper" or "rational" level of fear, because terrorism -- unlike, say, hurricanes or cancer -- isn't the product of extraneous causes but of human agency. You can make a good case that some people fear it too much, or too little, but only at the extremes.

ACTOR (AND KNOXVILLIAN) BRAD RENFRO has died.

DID THE PILL turn men into slackers?

January 16, 2008

SO I'M WRITING THIS ON THE Asus Eee PC that I mentioned a while back. Unlike the two supertiny computers that I reviewed for Popular Mechanics, this is big enough to type on, and the 7" screen is big enough to read. I wouldn't want to write a book, or even a law review article, on this gadget, but as a (comparatively) inexpensive portable blogging tool it''s not bad.

UPDATE: Reader Laura Blanchard emails:

I bought one after you blogged about it, and it's a dandy road machine. Most folks don't need to do much other than e-mail and note-taking (or in your case blogging) on the road. This thing is small and light enough that I am willing to carry a laptop almost all the time now.

It was the EEE or a Blackberry for me. EEE wins.

Yeah. And it costs 1/5 what my little Sony did, which not only makes it cheaper to buy, but also lets you worry less about losing it or having it stolen.

READER EDWARD CROWLEY EMAILS: "I was in the car, listening to Sean Hannity and he siad that he was going to have the first exclusive interview with Jonah Goldberg about his new book. I missed the interview, because I arrived at my destination, but remembered to email you so you can correct Hannity and tell him he is oh... I don't know.... a little behind the times.... and let him know that you had the first breaking interview with JG- what a month ago. Hannity needs to catch up with the times!!!" Well, he should subscribe to the podcasts, for sure.

UPDATE: Ed Driscoll emails: "Hannity’s interview wasn’t even the first radio interview, since your interview with Jonah aired on XM’s POTUS ’08 channel on Friday January 5th as part of Pajamas’ PJM Political show." Good point!

SOME BAD NEWS FROM PAKISTAN, from Bill Roggio.

BUSH BEGS THE SAUDIS: He'd be better off implementing the Zubrin plan . . . .

UPDATE: Bush gets some criticism from Fred Thompson.

VIDEO: A pro-Huckabee, anti-Thompson, push-poll.

MEGAN MCARDLE ON AGING BABY BOOMERS: Read the whole thing. I love the opening paragraph.

HIL FORCE ONE: But what about the greenhouse emissions? Don't they care about the planet?

IS HUCKABEE'S APPEAL regionally limited?

THE QUEST FOR better body armor.

MORE ON L'Affaire Ron Paul. I've written before on the bizarre confluence of "neoconfederate libertarianism."

THE TOP TEN NEW CARS from the Detroit Auto Show.

AN ARMY OF CLYDE TOMBAUGHS:

Three Racine sophomore students were notified on Monday that a celestial body they discovered during a science project had been verified as an asteroid.

The students at Racine's Prairie School will be able to name the asteroid, temporarily identified as "2008 AZ28," in about four years, according to the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass., the international authority on known objects in the solar system.

I actually wrote about this very phenomenon in An Army of Davids. Astronomical work that used to require a university is now routinely done by amateurs.

MICKEY KAUS makes himself popular with the netroots crowd.

MORE ON THE NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTE, at Ars Technica. Conclusion: "As of today, only sixteen states mandate both a voter-verified paper trail (VVPT) and a random manual audit of election results. The remaining 34 either don't have a mandatory VVPT, don't have mandatory audits, or don't have either. So that's 34 possibilities for a close presidential contest to produce the same blizzard of data, analysis, accusation, and uncertainty that we saw on a very small scale with New Hampshire. Let's hope for a blow-out, landslide victory by one side, because I get tired just thinking about anything closer."

Read the whole thing. And we really need much better security and auditability for voting. And voters.

SO WITH ABOUT 6,000 NEW VOTES since I asked people to hit this week's Pajamas Straw Poll, the big winners are Fred Thompson and Barack Obama. Big losers: John Edwards and Mike Huckabee.

DON SURBER: "OK, this is a survey by Playboy. But I don’t read Playboy, so I got it from Political Wire."

NO NEED TO PLAY NAME THAT PARTY HERE!

A former congressman and delegate to the United Nations was indicted Wednesday as part of a terrorist fundraising ring that allegedly sent more than $130,000 to an al-Qaida and Taliban supporter who has threatened U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan.

The former Republican congressman from Michigan, Mark Deli Siljander, was charged with money laundering, conspiracy and obstructing justice for allegedly lying about lobbying senators on behalf of an Islamic charity that authorities said was secretly sending funds to terrorists.

A 42-count indictment, unsealed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Mo., accuses the Islamic American Relief Agency of paying Siljander $50,000 for the lobbying—money that turned out to be stolen from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

I suspect that there's a good deal more corruption of this type, actually.

BURNING OUT ON AMERICAN IDOL: "If it's good, you're supposed to bond. You're supposed to care as these characters begin their journey into the months long sifting process. They prod you to bond by presenting mini-melodramas that emphasize the contestants' close bonds to their mothers, their sick children, and their horses and kitties." Kinda like the campaign, which a lot of people are burning out on already, too . . . .

REMEMBERING the Subaru SVX. I always thought those were kind of cool. Plus, unlike the WRX, they weren't ugly as a monkey's butt. I mean, the WRX is surprisingly fast, and it handles well, but . . . .

TRUST IN MEDIA PLUMMETS, especially on Iraq.

TECHNOLOGY MARCHES ON: The Cappucino Cam.

BLACKFIVE: Can we risk allowing Airbus to build our air fleets?

UPDATE: Reader Bill Reece emails:

I think that some further information is warranted than the glib one liner you posted in the link. The EADS proposal includes Northrop-Grumman as a major partner in the project. If the contract is awarded to EADS, it would build the airplanes in a new facility in Mobile, Alabama as part of a major capital investment in the U.S. economy with the likelihood that EADS would also expand its operations to include the construction of civilian aircraft as well.

The persons involved in the project from the bottom of the totem pole to nearly the top would be American workers living and paying taxes in the U.S. Boeing is every bit as much a "multi-national" corporation as is EADS. Many prominent American defense specialists and political figures have expressed no concern whatsoever on the issue of EADS building these planes and the only pending issue for the DOD to decide at this point is which proposal is overall most cost efficient and practicable for the U.S. Defense Department. Suggestions about anything else being a problem in this competition is mere paranoid chauvinism. In addition, while the governments that support EADS may not have a pristine record, at least EADS does not have a record of bribery and corruption in U.S. defense contracts such as its main competition has in its past.

In the interests of full disclosure, I am a resident of Mobile.

"Mere paranoid chauvinism" is probably a bit strong.

"UNCOMMITTED" delivers a victory speech in Michigan.

HEY, DO ME A FAVOR, and if you haven't voted in the Pajamas staw poll -- top of the right sidebar -- this week, please do. I'd like to see how InstaPundit readers view the race now. (Bumped).

GOD, SCHMOD, I want my monkey-man!

Alternate take: "Now our future is going to be a mix of both Terminator and Planet of the Apes." Couldn't it be more like Barbarella?

GOOD NEWS, OR BAD? I'm not sure. U.S. Economy: Inflation Slows, Production Unchanged.

UH OH: "Europe's economies show signs of slowing significantly even as inflation rates rise, introducing the word 'stagflation' into the scenarios that some economists are sketching out for 2008." Given that the United States' economy is clearly slowing, if not clearly in recession, we need stronger growth elsewhere to help mitigate the effects. I doubt we'll see that, though.

MONICA LEWINSKY -- source of a "lasting stain" on mainstream media? Out, damned spot!

FRED THOMPSON smacks the Department of Justice on the Second Amendment case.

APPLIANCE-BLOGGING, from the Insta-Wife. I'll just note that I warned her that front-loaders are less reliable, but she liked the looks and the efficiency. Which was a reasonable choice.

THIS SOUNDS LIKE GOOD NEWS: "Two teams of US scientists have demonstrated silicon-based 'thermoelectric' materials that could convert waste heat back into electricity[1,2] - potentially giving a boost to the efficiency of everything from power stations to refrigerators. Until now, efficient thermoelectric materials have used pricier metals such as bismuth or tellurium. Switching over to silicon could have a global impact, allowing large-scale thermoelectric devices to be produced more cheaply." I hope it pans out. (Via Nanodot).

CONGRESSIONAL STONEWALLING:

Florida law enforcement officials have been denied access to the office computers of disgraced former Congressman Mark Foley, despite a direct appeal to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for help in their investigation of sexually explicit messages sent to current and former teenage congressional pages.

Well, it's only fair -- Dennis Hastert did his best to protect William "Freezer Cash" Jefferson, too.

ANOTHER REPORT from South Carolina.

TEST-DRIVING THE Prius plug-in hybrid.

UPDATE: Related item here.

JONATHAN ADLER: "I also think conservatives should pay attention to how they believe respective presidential candidates would deal with the vast federal bureaucracy, large portions of which are staffed with civil servants who are hostile to a conservative governing agenda. Transforming government requires more than being able to give a good speech and make sound policy decisions." He's right -- and though Jonathan is a Thompson guy, this is at the root of my worries about Thompson. He can give good speeches and make sound policy decisions, but his management abilities, as demonstrated in this campaign so far, have been less than stellar.

FINDING SMUGGLER TUNNELS along the border.

WHO WROTE RON PAUL'S NEWSLETTERS? Reportedly, it was Lew Rockwell. Not a huge surprise.

UPDATE: Related item from Robert Bidinotto.

LEGAL PROBLEMS FOR Vladimir Putin. Made worse, I suppose, by the fact that he's stashed his billions outside Russia. The problem with despotism, I guess, is that it makes it hard to trust your own banking system . . .

IN THE MAIL: Mark Smith's Official Handbook of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. It's a special election edition, but I didn't look to see if there was an explanation of Karl Rove's coded messages to operatives, delivered via the New York Sun's crossword section . . . .

BOB OWENS: HARPER'S DEFAULTS on Scott Horton's credibility.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Bipartisan demands that Bush do nothing about earmarks:

The leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee are calling on President Bush to back away from threats to kill funding for lawmakers’ pet projects.

The pre-emptive warnings from the top Democrat and Republican on the panel are the clearest signs yet that President Bush could face a bipartisan backlash if he uses his executive authority to wipe out the more than $7 billion in earmarks.

Yeah, nobody wants that except the taxpayers . . . . The Republicans, in particular, who are behind this demand are the reason why the GOP lost in 2006, and if Bush listens they'll be the reason why the GOP loses in 2008.

They won't care, though, as long as they are permitted to suck unmolested at the government teat.

FORT DIX SIX UPDATE: "A group of men accused of planning an attack on Fort Dix face additional charges, including attempted murder, after a grand jury concluded there was evidence the men tried to kill uniformed members of the military."

AT THE DETROIT AUTO SHOW: Taking a surreal and illegal test drive in a Chinese hybrid.

THIS ISN'T NEWS, but it bears repeating:

The United States remains the world leader in scientific and technological innovation, but its dominance is threatened by economic development elsewhere, particularly in Asia, the National Science Board said Tuesday in its biennial report on science and engineering.

The United States’ position is especially delicate, the agency said, given its reliance on foreign-born workers to fill technical jobs.

The big problem is that the American workplace doesn't make technical jobs attractive enough. The pay is okay, but less than that of other professionals, like lawyers. And the working conditions for engineers and scientists are generally quite poor -- too much Dilbert, not enough Skunk Works. They act as if there's a positive conspiracy to take all the fun out of it, according several of my friends who work in the area.

UPDATE: Reader Ken Braithwaite emails:

It got much worse after Sarbanes-Oxley. Suddenly we revamped all our processes to include "separation of duties" and other constraints ostensibly to prevent the merest possibility of fraud. But not really of course: really to provide ass-coverage at every level. But this applies as well in all sorts of situations where fraud is not an issue, like developers testing their code. The effect where I work has been disastrous.

People respond to incentives, and incentives were distorted at every level by SOX requirements.

It's a metaphor for the society at large, I fear. And another engineer reader who prefers anonymity writes:

I would just like to say that yes, the pay could be better, and the old, dusty cubicles could be nicer offices, and I do feel like I live in a Dilbert strip. But the worst thing in my opinion is the management at my company, where the rewards and recognition for a job well done are few and far between. I've worked for over twelve years now as an aerospace engineer, and in that time I've had a fair amount of success on various projects, but have never gotten above a three on my performance evals.

I still think I would be bored doing anything else, but sometimes I just want to say screw it all and go use my abilities somewhere that I could make a lot more money. And I'm not alone.

One of my friends noted that engineers tend to do th