February 16, 2008

TALKLEFT: Obama as the next McGovern? Hey, everybody I know voted for him!

UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

HISTORIANS for Hillary!

JOHN SCALZI IS AUCTIONING OFF A PRE-PUBLICATION COPY of his new book Zoe's Tale to benefit disabled American veterans. Zoe's Tale is the fourth book in the series that started with Old Man's War, a blogosphere favorite.

INSTAPUNDIT'S IRAQ CORRESPONDENT, MAJOR JOHN TAMMES, EMAILS:

Your Iraq Correspondent is stuck in Kuwait. Knowing your deep and abiding love of camels (ha!) I have attached a couple of pictures from the ranges we used out in the Kuwaiti desert. Right now I am waiting for air traffic to get back on schedule after a fairly, uh, interesting sandstorm rolled through the area.

One interesting thing to note - without exception, everyone here who was delayed is impatient to get "up North" and into the fight. Could you imagine such a thing in, say, 1973?

Nope.

BEWARE THE COMING THEOCRACY! "People mocked Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney for their religious backgrounds often during the presidential campaigns, but at least they never claimed to be on a mission to save the souls of Americans through government action."

DETROIT HOME SALES, up 15%. That's good news, I guess, though in part I suspect it's just evidence that the housing bubble never got to Detroit.

JACK LAIL: Boss Hogg Couldn't Survive Bloggers' Buzz.

A STRING OF OBAMA FAINTING INCIDENTS: Video. The string of similar incidents is kind of eerie.

UPDATE: Related item here.

ELEANOR CLIFT: "Al Gore on the second ballot: A scenario that a few weeks ago seemed preposterous is beginning to look plausible to some nervous Democrats looking for a way out of the deadlock between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama."

This seems more like a pundit's dream than anything that's likely to happen. But to the extent that Democratic leaders are seriously talking about this, it's a poor reflection on both Clinton and Obama.

DON SURBER: "Having actually worked at a textile mill, I say the people in Bangladesh are welcome to make my shirts."

VOTE-COUNTING PROBLEMS IN NEW YORK: "Several Harlem precincts recorded 0 votes for Obama."

Plus, charges of PMS sexism. "I understand that Senator Clinton, periodically when she's feeling down, launches attacks as a way of trying to boost her appeal." I blame the staff!

UPDATE: Just remember: PMS = Perpetuating Male Superiority!

PHOTOS FROM ZOMBIETIME: Code Pink protests the Marines in Berkeley.

(Sorry -- had my Zombies mixed up there for a bit.)

PROGRESS IN IRAQ: Whatever happened to those benchmarks?

OBAMA'S ECONOMIC PLAN: "Should be called Red Dawn II." That seems a bit extreme, but you can read the plan (PDF) and make up your own minds.

What's clear is that Obama's policy proposals are getting a lot more attention than they did before Hillary's inevitability broke down. Like Mike Huckabee, he got a "nice guy" pass when people thought he didn't have a shot, but a few wins in a row and he's starting to get major-candidate scrutiny. Some Obama supporters object to such scrutiny, but their claims ring rather hollow. After all, he is running for President.

IMPORTANT QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS about the infrared turkey fryer. Infrared turkey-frying video here.

UPDATE: Rand Simberg calls foul. "Without expressing an opinion on the relative merits of cooking a turkey this way, it's not equivalent to deep-fat frying."

BILL CLINTON goes after Obama again.

VIRUS FROM CHINA: "An insidious computer virus recently discovered on digital photo frames has been identified as a powerful new Trojan Horse from China that collects passwords for online games - and its designers might have larger targets in mind." This kind of thing is really damaging China's national "brand."

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: The Examiner weighs in with an editorial:

Whenever a field goal kicker puts the football way off to the right or left of the goal post, it's called a "shank." House Minority Leader John Boehner and his colleagues among the GOP leadership shanked one this week on the earmarks issue. A GOP slot opened up on the House Appropriations Committee, which signs off on the pet projects of lawmakers. If Boehner and company were serious about ending the earmark culture, which has badly undermined the credibility of Congress, they had a perfect man to fill the vacancy: Jeff Flake of Arizona. He has introduced more amendments to strike earmarks than any other member of the House, and putting him on the appropriations panel would have shown that the GOP was no longer just talking about earmark reform. Instead, Boehner and company settled on Rep. Jo Bonner of Alabama.

Bonner gets high marks for personal integrity and he certainly knows how the Appropriations panel works, having served as chief of staff to Rep. Sonny Callahan, who for many years was a powerful member of the committee. And Bonner has pledged support for the earmarks moratorium being pushed by the House GOP leadership. The problem is that Bonner's voting record, as tabulated by the National Taxpayers Union, puts him among such stellar proponents of earmark politics as House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Louisiana's "Dollar Bill" Jefferson. It's all well and good for Bonner to talk about the need for earmark reform, but his voting record and the invitation to earmark applicants on his official web site tell a different story. It might be otherwise if Bonner's appointment were accompanied by a declaration that he will no longer seek earmarks for any purpose, but no such statement was heard.

Read the whole thing.

BLOWBACK FOR WAXMAN on the Clemens steroid hearings.

LIFE ON MARS: Looking somewhat less likely despite the presence of water. Maybe it's just that there's nothing to do on Mars. . . .

MORE NEWS ON APPLE TV, plus what the iPhone had to do with Starbucks ditching T-Mobile in favor of cheaper, easier to use wi-fi.

DEMOCRATS LOOK TO AVOID CONVENTION RIFT: Now see, when I first pointed this problem out over two months ago, it was so arcane that some commenters didn't understand what it was about until Tom Maguire explained it in simple language. But now it's passed into conventional wisdom.

THOUGHTS FROM PHIL BOWERMASTER on safeguarding humanity.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Here's more on the Bonner appointment:

In 1995, when Republicans took control of Congress, they were full of promises of fiscal responsibility. Dick Armey, who became House majority leader that year, says they practiced spending restraint "with very serious rigor"--and discretionary spending decreased from $609.2 billion in 1995 to $581 billion in 1998 in constant dollars. But House Appropriations chairman Bob Livingston soon refused to work with the fiscal-restraint proponent Armey, who was in charge of floor scheduling. At that point, in Armey's telling, "discipline broke down," and discretionary spending began to rise. It hasn't stopped since. In 2006, total discretionary spending, adjusted for inflation, reached $823.5 billion.

The House wasn't the only culprit in the demise of Republican spending restraint. Other players included the Republican Senate (which some policy analysts say is even more extravagant than the House), a Democratic president, and a Republican president with spending initiatives of their own. Add to that the new homeland-security initiatives after 9/11, two wars, Hurricane Katrina, and the allure of earmarks, and all attempts at spending restraint went out the door. In 2006, the party paid dearly at the polls. . . .

Chris Edwards, director of tax policy at the Cato Institute, says that until the system is reformed, earmarking will go on unrestrained, "regardless of who is in power." Democrats are continuing the Republicans' policy of directing earmarks to vulnerable members. Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, says that by not appointing Flake to the committee, Republicans missed an opportunity to make a "strong statement" about earmark reform. Jo Bonner supported the moratorium--but his own earmarks totaled nearly $28 million this year.

Reform-minded policy analysts agree that Republicans should enact a unilateral earmark moratorium and appoint Flake-types to the Appropriations committee in 2009, when six Republican members will retire. For now, though, Republicans will continue to pork it up at least until Election Day.

Sometimes I think they'd rather be a porky minority than a porkless majority. And here's more from Bonner's home state:

For the current fiscal year, Flake did not receive any money for such "earmarked" endeavors, according to a newly released rundown from Taxpayers for Common Sense. Working with Alabama's two senators, Bonner obtained almost $17.3 million for 14 projects, the tally shows.

Bonner was on his way back to Mobile late Thursday afternoon and not available for comment, spokeswoman Nancy Wall said.

But in his news release, he underscored his support for efforts to overhaul the current earmarking process, which critics say is riddled with waste and favoritism.

He's talking the talk. Will he walk the walk? And James Joyner has some further thoughts:

It’s very interesting that the blogs have become a sufficiently important factor in the process to at least have the leadership wary. Bloggers are routinely solicited by the public relations outreach efforts of the Congress and the parties and inclusion on conference calls on the like has become routine in recent years.

But internal politics are likely always going to trump external pressures from commentators.

Yep. But at least we can make the choices clear. Joyner also comments, on Jeff Flake: "I’d note some small irony in the conservative blogosphere championing a cantankerous fiscal conservative from Arizona perceived by his colleagues as insufficient loyal to the team." Heh.

FEEL THE FEAR, and do it anyway.

VOLOKH ON OBAMA ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT: "Sounds like it's a pretty thin form of 'individual rights' he supports — and he doesn't intend to take away people's guns, except if they're the very sort of gun that people are most likely to want to keep for self-defense purposes."

CONSERVATIVES: Licking their wounds, or looking ahead?

TOLEDO UPDATE: The $57.7 million mayoral mistake.

February 15, 2008

COMPARING OBAMA TO MILLI VANILLI? I blame the Clinton Attack Machine.

I MISSED THIS YESTERDAY: Dahlia Lithwick's "Dear Obama" letter:

As an ironic, contrarian, so-hip-it-hurts Gen X-er, I just can't love you anymore. I can't like you because … because, well, everyone else does. And suddenly supporting you just seems soooo last week. . . .

I know this is going to sound strange, but it's not you, Barack, it's me. Really it always was me, but now it's really, really about me. I don't know when we started to feel weird supporting you, but: My friend Hanna thinks it started with that "Yes We Can," video. I mean, last week I was totally crying watching it. Now just thinking about how choked up I got gives me the creeps.

Read the whole thing. (Via Althouse).

CHINA WOULD LIKE TO HAVE 10 MILLION MORE NOW: Mao offered U.S. 10 million women.

"RACISM AND INTOLERANCE" at Stanford.

REMEMBERING THE INAPPROPRIATELY NAMED Dodge Rampage. The photos are kind of cruel.

ADVICE FOR HILLARY: "Her 'wait until March 4, some states matter, some states don't' approach feels more like Rudy Giuliani's with each passing day. . . . When you're losing, the only real cure is winning."

FAINTING SPELLS.

LARRY LESSIG FOR CONGRESS? We could do worse -- and probably will!

MORE THOUGHTS ON the "dirty stuff" of politics.

JOEL ARENDS: Does Congress realize we're at war?

FORGETTING TO RIOT.

EUGENE VOLOKH AND I were on Hugh Hewitt's show last night talking about the Northern Illinois shootings. The transcript is here. And, of course, this piece remains relevant. And this one.

Also -- especially if you're a college administrator -- you might want to check out this article on campus violence. (Bumped).

WAS OBAMA A LOUSY PRESIDENT -- of the Harvard Law Review? The evidence presented is unpersuasive.

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST: "First Umad Mughniyeh takes the 72-virgin ride with a Bashar Assad Special. Now Ayman Atallah Fayed gets blasted in the most literal sense of the word. Both men were high-ranking members of terrorist groups arrayed against Israel. Coincidence?"

MORE ON BRZEZINSKI IN DAMASCUS, which got surprisingly little press coverage.

ANN ALTHOUSE CORRECTS THE IGNORANT AND NAIVE:

I had to laugh at the idea that mocking the President began in the year 2001. Bill Clinton was not a figure of fun? The first Bush? Reagan? Carter? Ford? Nixon? LBJ? JFK? Eisenhower? That's as far back as I personally can remember. I won't say most people my age have never felt proud of our President. But I never have. And I don't think that's so terrible. Don't worship leaders. Let the mockery flow on. Even if a guy you like who seems pretty good makes it to the White House.

Indeed.

UPDATE: From the comments: "I think the need for Messianic Presidents began when people turned away from God and the church. . . . So many people are looking for a President that they can be excited about. I am looking for a President I can feel calm about."

MEETING WITH TERRORISTS, on the taxpayer's dime.

BRRR! Snow and ice in . . . San Diego?

CELEBRATING THE SURGE ANNIVERSARY IN BAGHDAD: Gateway Pundit has a roundup.

MORE DISSING OF HILLARY: "'At a minimum, a head of state should have a head,' Putin said." She's just losing one superdelegate after another . . . .

UPDATE: A reminder that Putin isn't the first world leader to call Hillary an ignoramus.

A ROUNDUP OF NEW, OPEN-ACCESS online law libraries.

MAYBE BLAIR SHOULD'VE HAD 'EM KILLED OR SOMETHING: "Saudi Arabia's rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday." Or at least gone public with the story and frozen all Saudi assets in Britain. Then again, that's kind of what's happening anyway, albeit in slow motion.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO Charles Darwin.

A DANISH CARTOONIST ON THE RUN. In a better world, it would be the people who openly supported terrorism who had to worry.

IN TENNESSEE, LEGISLATION RESPONDING TO CAMPUS SHOOTINGS by legalizing gun carry on campus by faculty and staff. Direct bill link here (PDF). Seems like a good idea to me, though as I've noted elsewhere, I'm okay with permit-holding students carrying too.

THAT'S NOT A RECIPE FOR SUCCESS: Obama imitates Olmert.

RUSH LIMBAUGH begs Steve Jobs for Apple bug fixes. Good luck!

ROWAN WILLIAMS UPDATE: Canadian Women's Rights Activist Homa Arjomand says Rowan Williams should quit!

RAND SIMBERG: "I frankly don't get all the Obamamania. . . . His speeches remind me of Gertrude Stein's comment about Oakland--there's no there there."

HOUSE REPUBLICANS TO JOHN SHADEGG: Baby, please don't go!

SUPERDELEGATE UPDATE: "In an ironic twist to the historic Democratic nominating contest between an African-American and a woman, the balance of power may be held by a more familiar face: the white male. . . . One Obama superdelegate, a House member, had sharp criticism for the superdelegate racial and gender makeup, a reaction that reflects the sensitivities surrounding the issue."

JOHN WEIDNER DISCOVERS THE LATEST LOW-DOWN CAMPAIGN TRICK: Campaigning on the issues and facts!

IT'S NOT EASY to be Hillary.

I MENTIONED STEVEN TELES' The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement a while back. Now Orin Kerr has posted a review. He likes it.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: The Bonner appointment blowback makes the Washington Post:

Anti-earmark crusader Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) lost his bid for a seat on the House Appropriations Committee Thursday, and the conservative blogosphere is not happy about it.

This Red State post was typical of the reaction. Under the heading, "House Republicans Aren't Serious About Earmark Reform," blogger Bluey wrote, "Just when it appeared House Republicans had turned the corner on earmark reform, party leaders did the unthinkable."

The seat instead went to Alabama Rep. Jo Bonner (R), a former Appropriations staffer who beat a field that included Flake, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Cole (Okla.) and a host of other aspirants that included one genuinely vulnerable GOP member, Rep. Dave Reichert (Wash.). . . .

Republican leaders know that Flake is a cause célèbre in the blogosphere. They knew passing him over would prompt a backlash. But while they want to keep hammering away on the earmarks issue, they simply were not going to reward Flake for what they perceive to be insufficient loyalty to the team.

House Republicans' unwillingness to commit to a party-wide moratorium on earmarks demonstrated that their crusade does have its limits, and yesterday's move reaffirmed that fact.

Indeed it did.

UPDATE: The Hill: Booted from the PorkBusters list:

Angered by the decision of Republican leaders to not give earmark foe Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) a coveted seat on the Appropriations Committee, a coalition of fiscal conservative groups is kicking the GOP leadership’s representative off its mailing list.

“At the request of several key groups in the porkbusting coalition, I have decided to eject the House GOP leadership’s representative, Bill Greene, from the Coalition mailing list,” said blogger Rob Neppell. The Porkbusters coalition is made up of conservative groups, such as the Club for Growth, the Heritage Foundation and the National Taxpayer’s Union, and bloggers.

The Porkbusters coalition also includes the Sunlight Foundation, and a bunch of lefties associated therewith.

MICHAEL S. MALONE on the solar power boom. Moore's Law, it turns out, applies to solar power, and non-greens are figuring out what that implies.

A STIRRING DEFENSE OF JANE FONDA, at InstaPunk.

IN THE MAIL: Lee and Bob Woodruff's In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing.

RIOTS IN DENMARK: Gateway Pundit has a roundup.

A BLOGGER REVOLT over the Bonner appointment.

CRIME IN A NON-GUN-FREE ZONE:

Investigators say they were definitely going to rob him - possibly even kill him.

But an 80-year-old North Texan wasn't about to let that happen, so he took action.

One of the suspects is in the hospital and both are facing charges.

Two men obviously thought James Pickett, 80, was an easy target when they showed up at his home on Saturday with a knife. . . .

What the men didn't know is Picket had taken a pistol and put it in his pocket before opening the door.

"He jumped and turned and I shot him," Picket said.

The two brothers, Paul and Holden Perry, ran but didn't get far before calling an ambulance.

A bullet just missed Paul Perry's spine.

"The only problem was I run out of bullets," Picket said.

Obviously, he should have had a high-capacity semiautomatic. He's not worried about retribution, though: "'They best not come back,' he said."

ZOMBIES at the WaPo!

HERE'S THE NEW Indiana Jones trailer. Looks pretty good.

A SOLAR SYSTEM THAT looks like ours. Good news: “The fact that these are hard to detect by microlensing means there must be a good number of them — solar system analogues are not rare.”

IN NEW HAVEN, they're still trying to save the Yankee Doodle diner.

GOOD QUESTION: "What in the world are advisers to both Senators Obama and Clinton doing in Syria in the middle of a presidential campaign? . . . The same week that a terrorist mastermind harbored by the Baathist regime in Damascus was assassinated by a car bomb, both one of Mr. Obama's foreign policy counselors, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a long-time critic of Israel, and one of Mrs. Clinton's national finance chairs, Hassan Nemazee, were meeting with President Assad."

Of course, maybe it's not just a coincidence, as Zbig was always a dab hand with the Semtex.

MATH: Not all that important to engineers. Who knew?

DOES THE G.O.P. SEE AN OBAMA PRESIDENCY as inevitable? They shouldn't get too carried away with that -- "inevitability" has already taken quite a beating in this election cycle.

Related thoughts here. And Jules Crittenden thinks the bubble will burst. Undoubtedly. The question is -- before, or after, the election?

UPDATE: Further thoughts from James Joyner, who adds this useful cautionary note: "This election cycle has defied expectations so many times already. Hillary was done after Iowa, became inevitable after New Hampshire, and has now been written off again. McCain was toast just a few weeks ago and is now the all but certain nominee. There are still another nine months to go."

MICKEY KAUS: "If a Hispanic who has performed as poorly and prominently as Patti Solis Doyle can't be fired without her employer getting grief from Hispanic leaders, isn't that a pretty big disincentive to hiring a Hispanic in the first place?" Lesson: "Stick to white males--if they screw up, you can sack them and nobody will whine." Ah, the bold new politics of the 21st Century. . . .

ROWAN WILLIAMS UPDATE: The gathering storm.

WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS: An underwater car. I'm somewhat skeptical, but hey, whatever floats your boat sinks your car.

THIS KIPLINGER ONLINE CALCULATOR lets you calculate your tax rebate (if any) online. (Via TaxProf).

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: House Republicans aren't serious about earmark reform:

Just when it appeared House Republicans had turned the corner on earmark reform, party leaders did the unthinkable. They picked Rep. Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) for the vacant seat on the Appropriations Committee, bypassing conservative Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and the opportunity to show they were committed to real reform.

Bonner may talk a good game when it comes to earmark reform. However, his record is abysmal. The three-term Republican scored just 2% on the Club for Growth's 2007 RePORK Card, meaning he voted for just one of the 50 anti-pork amendments offered by conservatives. Andy Roth notes that's the same score as liberal Reps. Steny Hoyer, Bill Jefferson and James Moran. Flake, on the other hand, not only supported all 50, but he introduced many himself.

Ouch. The New Boss looks a lot like the old Boss.

February 14, 2008

WHAT WILL OBAMA DO when there's no Hillary firewall? We'll find out soon!

CAMPAIGN CASH FOR SUPERDELEGATES: "Many of the superdelegates who could well decide the Democratic presidential nominee have already been plied with campaign contributions by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, a new study shows."

THE NEW YORK TIMES DISCOVERS THAT greed is good.

JERICHO IS BACK, and you can watch the first episode of the new season online for free right here. This whole free thing is kind of cool.

HILLARY WINS NEW MEXICO.

TALKING IN PUBLIC IS HARD; too hard for some people.

UH OH: "Representative John Lewis, an elder statesman from the civil rights era and one of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s most prominent black supporters, said Thursday night that he planned to cast his vote as a superdelegate for Senator Barack Obama in hopes of preventing a fight at the Democratic convention."

PARENTS MAKE A SHOCKING DISCOVERY: Children are not decor. Some priceless lines follow.

JOHN HINDERAKER SAYS that Congress is not serious about national security.

SO FAR IT'S A DIVERSE GROUP: Last week, I was "Yalie of the Week." This week, it's Eleanor Holmes Norton.

WILL THIS ELECTION BE DECIDED BY Angry White Men? That's not what most of the pundits are saying.

DEMOCRATS FOR ENERGY INDEPENDENCE:

A plan introduced Thursday by U.S. Rep. Mike Ross to encourage alternative and renewable energy relies on oil drilling in Arctic wildlife lands and the Gulf of Mexico to meet its goals.

Ross' bill, the "American-Made Energy Act of 2008," also would create tax credits to build new nuclear power plants throughout the United States, with an aim of having 40 percent of the nation's power come from nuclear sources.

Ross, a leader of a group of fiscally conservative Democrats known as the Blue Dog Coalition, is a co-sponsor on the bill with Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. Ross told reporters on a conference call Thursday that technology would allow companies to drill for oil without endangering the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northern Alaska.

Good for them.

I DUNNO, WHAT THIS GUY IS SAYING doesn't seem all that different from what Mearsheimer and Walt have been saying . . . .

MICKEY KAUS thinks Mark Halperin's language is the story. To me the story is the absurdity of John Edwards, of all people, attacking Obama for being insufficiently manly. I don't think Obama's worried about that one . . . .

Anyway, Halperin could have used a worse word on the air . . . .

"KEEP YOUR BURQA, I'll keep my clitoris." Admirable sentiment.

SMOKE-FILLED ROOMS: "What is ironic about the gyrations of the Clinton team in trying to argue against the will of the voters in the Democratic nomination process is that Hillary was part of the McGovern team back in 1972, and it was the McGovern Commission that wrote the rules that created the contemporary primary-based nomination system."

IF YOU MISSED PJM POLITICAL on XM Satellite Radio tonight, you can listen to a special pimped-out edition online now.

WE SHALL BE OVERCOME?

MEGAN GARBER IN CJR: The press hearts Obama. But is it toxic?

SOME MORE ANALYSIS on that satellite "shoot down" effort.

HERE'S A ROUNDUP on that shooting at Northern Illinois University. I'm pretty sure that this will turn out to be yet another mass shooting in a "gun free zone."

UPDATE: Yep.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here, including a report that there were no fatalities other than the shooter, according to the hospital. Stay tuned and things will no doubt clear up.

MORE: Local newspaper site here. It says 5 confirmed dead.

THE ROWAN WILLIAMS STORY still has legs.

More here: "Rowan Williams has shown us one thing – why multiculturalism must be abandoned."

A SKEPTICAL LOOK at Obama's Global Poverty Act. See, I told you he'd be getting more scrutiny as Hillary weakened. . . .

GUNS IN SPACE.

THE RISKY PROFESSION of psychology.

HOSPITAL CARE: Worse on weekends? Apparently, it's not just a myth.

DALE CARPENTER on gay rights and gun rights.

DANIEL HENNINGER says that when you look past the presentation, Obama's speeches are downers. Ann Althouse wonders if anyone is listening that closely.

Nick Gillespie, meanwhile, has started paying attention to Obama's pronouncements and isn't that happy: "I smell...intervention in the economy." And still more Obama-parsing here: "I think that's the kind of uniter that Obama wants to be. He wants to be an outflanker, not a synthesizer or a moderate in the typical senses of those terms." I guess he'll be getting a lot more close attention now that the shield of Hillary's supposed inevitability has disintegrated.

THE REPUBLICANS DON'T NEED THIS NOW: Charges of betrayal on gun rights:

The Department of Justice's (DOJ) previously stated position is that the Second Amendment secures a right of individuals not restricted to militia service. But astonishingly, the Justice Department now recommends an elastic standard for determining whether a handgun ban is reasonable. . . . In effect, a conservative administration has thrown a lifeline to gun controllers. Following the DOJ blueprint, they can pay lip service to an individual right while simultaneously stripping it of any real meaning. After all, if the D.C. ban can survive judicial scrutiny, it is difficult to imagine a regulation that would not. . . . Supporters of the Constitution can only hope that the Supreme Court will embrace an individual-rights view of the Second Amendment while rejecting the notion that legislatures can treat the amendment as if it did not exist. Regrettably, the Bush administration — supposed proponent of gun rights and devotee of the Constitution — has added one more breach of promise to its growing list.

Read the whole thing.

SOME INTERESTING poll data from Wisconsin.

UPDATE: Some related thoughts at The American Thinker.

HARVESTING ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY FUEL FROM THE AIR, with clean, nuclear power! "Scientists there say they have developed a way to produce truly carbon-neutral fuel and useful organic chemicals at large scale using water and carbon dioxide removed from the air as raw materials." Those lovely, clean nukes. Too bad stooges for Big Oil managed to monkeywrench nuclear power for several decades in the 20th century.

ROMNEY WILL endorse McCain today.

WHO'DA THUNK IT? Regulation drives up home prices: "Between 1989 and 2006, the median inflation-adjusted price of a Seattle house rose from $221,000 to $447,800. Fully $200,000 of that increase was the result of land-use regulations, says Theo Eicher — twice the financial impact that regulation has had on other major U.S. cities." Maybe it's not a housing bubble at all, but a regulation bubble?

AN EXPERIMENT: "In a test of the American Dream, Adam Shepard started life from scratch with the clothes on his back and twenty-five dollars. Ten months later, he had an apartment, a car, and a small savings." Of course, you could start some folks off with a million bucks and in ten months they'd be looking for a homeless shelter.

DOUG KMIEC: Reaganites for Obama.

WELL, A LOW DOLLAR WILL DO THAT FOR YOU: Trade Deficit Falls After 5 Record Years.

DO STATINS make you stupid? I take low-dose Zocor to raise my HDL (my cholesterol's low, but my ratio's bad) and when I first started it I noticed I wasn't quite as quick in class -- I'd reach for a word or a case name and it wouldn't come as quickly -- but that seemed to go away after a few weeks.

THIS SHOULD PROVIDE SOME EXCITEMENT: "U.S. officials say the Pentagon is planning to shoot down a broken spy satellite expected to hit the Earth in early March."

UPDATE: Katie Granju: "Now this is the kind of thing that the U.S. military will be able to use in its recruiting campaign for the next decade. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be the sharpshooter who pushes the button that fires this missile?"

And here's the full scoop from Aviation Week.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A useful quibble on language, from Rand Simberg: "You can't 'shoot down' a satellite. In order to do so, you have to remove its momentum, so it falls out of orbit. All you can really do (at least with something as crude as a missile) is break it up into smaller pieces." Those, of course, are much more likely to burn up before reaching the ground.

DON'T MINCE WORDS, BOB: GM Vice Chairman Calls Global Warming A "Total Crock of S**t". So what's with the Chevy Volt? And all that fuel-cell stuff?

UPDATE: Varifrank explains that it's the power of the market: "He doesn't care why you want zero emission cars, he just wants you to buy them from him. He's not making cars for you and your sense of well being. He's making them so the shareholders of General Motors can make a profit. If there's a profit in it, he would make cars that run on hamster pellets." But I thought consumers were at the mercy of the big auto companies, who just sold us whatever they wanted, without caring what we think -- isn't that why the proliferation of SUVs is all their fault?

IN THE MAIL, a new book from frequent Instapundit correspondent Wagner James Au: The Making of Second Life: Notes from the New World. I read the first couple of chapters while waiting at the doctor's office yesterday; it's quite good -- even, or perhaps especially, if you haven't spent much time on Second Life.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY FRIENDSHIP DAY!

A FLEX-FUEL FUTURE: Bob Zubrin in NRO. I'm surprised the candidates haven't jumped on this harder.

WHY OWNING A SUPERCAR IS OVERRATED.

PARKING: Leave it to the professionals.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: We've had some progress on pork, with Henry Waxman joining the G.O.P. moratorium, but for other members of Congress it's business as usual:

The window for Congressional earmarks is open once again. Lawmakers from both parties are inviting constituents and lobbyists to recommend pet projects that could be financed by the federal government as the 2008 earmark season gets under way. . . .

Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan budget watchdog, issued a report on Wednesday that showed Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York had obtained $342 million in earmarks last year, nearly four times as much as the total for Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Mr. McCain of Arizona, a fierce critic of earmarks, did not obtain any because “he did not request any,” said Ryan Alexander, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense.

In its report, the group said that Representative John P. Murtha, Democrat of Pennsylvania, obtained $176 million in earmarks — more than any other House member except Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi, who is now a senator.

Business as usual.

WHERE'S Barack?

UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Thad Anderson emails: "Look I'd like to see Obama criticize that ad, too ... but the guy IS running for president. He's kind of busy. Where? I think Wisconsin today." I was hoping this might bring it to his attention.

MORE: Anderson replies: "Fair enough, fair enough. I guess asking him what he thinks about an issue isn't outside the scope of his job. After all, like I said, the guy IS running for president..." Yes, he is.

LOU MINATTI: Why Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee.

JONAH GOLDBERG'S LIBERAL FASCISM gets a good review from Thomas Sowell. It's still doing quite well in the Amazon rankings, too.

DILDOES GOING TO THE SUPREME COURT? Plus, as Dave Kopel notes, this case is entirely resolvable via our article on state police power, without the need to address an extension of Lawrence.

LAWYERS GONE WILD! I guess they yell "Show us your torts!"

MULTIFUNCTION PRINTERS: A security risk?

THOUGHTS ON MEN, WOMEN, AND MARRIAGE from Kim du Toit and Rachel Lucas.

UH OH: "Relax, President Obama just hit the wrong button."

THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY, cozying up to North Korea.

DEAD IN DAMASCUS: "Given the clandestine nature of the war on terror, it's often hard to know how much progress we're making. But Tuesday's death in Damascus of Imad Mughniyeh looks like an unambiguous victory."

PROGRESS IN IRAQ: A grudging admission at The New York Times.

UH OH: The libertarian era of Second Life is quickly coming to an end.

February 13, 2008

YES WE CAN.

MORE IDENTITY-POLITICS FUN for the Democrats. "Once again, the Democrats find themselves in the position of playing racial, ethnic, and now anti-Semitic politics."

VIDEO: A new song from R.E.M.

MEET YOUR SUPERDELEGATES: Jar-Jar Binks.

RADLEY BALKO on DNA testing, wrongful convictions, and the legal system.

TOLEDO apologizes to the Marines.

A EULOGY FOR THE FEMINIST VISION of a Hillary presidency.

MUCH MORE ON IRAQI ELECTORAL REFORM, AND WHY IT'S SO IMPORTANT, at The Belmont Club.

I KNOW AT LEAST ONE DISTINGUISHED OZARKS MILLIONAIRE WHO MIGHT FUND IT: A Department Of Hillbilly Studies?

GENGHIS KHAN RIDES AGAIN: Roger Simon reviews Mongol.

RANK ANTISEMITISM in the Democratic congressional primary in Memphis:

"Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen and the JEWS HATE Jesus," blares the flier, which Cohen himself received in the mail -- inducing gasps -- last week.

Circulated by an African-American minister from Murfreesboro Tenn., which isn't even in Cohen's district, the literature encourages other black leaders in Memphis to "see to it that one and ONLY one black Christian faces this opponent of Christ and Christianity in the 2008 election."

Well, that just makes everybody look good. Jeez. I like Steve Cohen a lot, and not just because he once gave me some absolutely amazing John Fogerty tickets (to the Mud Island show that was his first appearance after a decade of not touring). But even if I didn't, this would be absolutely disgraceful. Perhaps Barack Obama should make a point of condemning this.

UPDATE: Why should Obama weigh in? Because he promises an uplifting new kind of politics and this is an ugly old kind. Because Steve Cohen is one of Obama's supporters, and political loyalty is supposed to run both ways -- unless you're Hillary, anyway, and Obama's supposed to be the anti-Hillary. Because otherwise Obama's big appeal -- I'm a black candidate who's not like Al Sharpton! -- will be a fraud. And, of course, because it's the right thing to do.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Okay, the "fraud" bit was a bit strong. But it is the right thing to do, and it's the kind of thing that a guy promising a new uplifting kind of politics ought to do. Trust me, if the racial angle were pointing the other way, this would be getting a lot of attention, especially if it could be tied to a Republican. And I say this, remember, as a guy who went after Trent Lott for a lot less.

MORE: I'm criticized a bit over at The Carpetbagger Report, but I agree with this commenter:

Cohen is a stellar guy.

Barack should absolutely stop by and campaign for Cohen before the primary.

If you know Memphis and if this preacher is trying to divide dems by religion and race, this is an easy call.

Of course Barack does not have to respond everytime an Isaah Thomas (f)s up.

But I think you are really missing the point here.

I think they are, too.

MCCAIN TO BLOGGERS: "Listen, I'll never forget you. You were the only guys who would listen to me for a couple of months. Do you think I'd ever forget you?"

EFFORTS TO REMEDY the University of Colorado's diversity problem are generating backlash from those who don't want change.

WELL, IT'S HARD TO ARGUE WITH THIS: "If the 2008 primary season has taught us anything, it's that the conventional wisdom is not to be trusted."

OH NO, WILLIAM AND MARY WON'T DO: Here's more on Gene Nichol's departure from the W&M presidency.

UPDATE: By the way, the story behind Steely Dan's My Old School, referenced above, is here. Though it doesn't explain the William & Mary reference, which has nonetheless endeared the song to generations of W&M students . . . .

HERE'S MORE on the Obama / Che Guevara flag controversy.

CLONE WARS: A new Star Wars feature film.

EUGENE VOLOKH POINTS TO A "DANGEROUS" ERROR IN FIRST AMENDMENT ANALYSIS in an opinion on speech by District Judge Barbara S. Jones of the Southern District of New York.

NICK DENTON: "On the rare occasions I ponder my legacy, I think I should set up gossip sites to cover countries like Russia and China. To foment revolution, with a drip-drip of snarky stories about corruption. And then I remember that Putin reportedly has people killed."

PAUL MARKS: "Sometimes I suspect that even North Korean radio presents a slightly less distorted view of the world than the BBC does."

OH, I DON'T KNOW: "Muslim activist Syed Soharwardy plans to drop his 'human rights' complaint against Ezra Levant over the latter's decision, as publisher of the Western Standard, to reprint the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons. . . . Levant, for his part, says he plans to sue Soharwardy for wasting his time and money. I understand the sentiment, but I'm not sure it's a smart P.R. move."

It's not about P.R. It's about teaching people not to screw with you. Though that's a form of P.R., I guess . . . .

LEGISLATIVE PROGRESS in Iraq.

WARBOTS: Top 5 Bomb-Packing, Gun-Toting War Bots the U.S. Doesn’t Have.

MEIR JAVENDAFAR: "The assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, Iran’s top man in Syria and Lebanon, should set off alarm bells in Tehran. . . . The successful finding, tracking, and assassination of Mughniyeh come on the heels of a number of other major Western intelligence coups against Iran over the last several years."

Related thoughts at The Belmont Club.

UPDATE: More from Bill Roggio.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Still more here.

HELL, WHEN I WAS THERE, EVERY WEEK WAS Sex Week at Yale.

NORM GERAS RESPONDS to revisionist history on the Iraq war. Which won't stop people from lying, alas . . . .

REMEMBERING THE ORIGINAL CAPRI, before it became "a subservient ugly cousin of the Mustang."

FAUSTA: "If you are a billionaire, or a foreigner, and don't want it known that you are donating millions to a US presidential campaign, here's how."

ZERO-G Alka-Seltzer.

UNVEILING THE OBAMA "SPENDOMETER." That this has appeared is itself a bad sign for Hilary.

JOHN DERBYSHIRE: "Ben Stein's piece illustrates quite exceptionally well the close intellectual kinship between creationism and leftist postmodernism."

MICHAEL CROWLEY: "The press's failure to closely examine Obama's Iraq record is a source of perpetual frustration for the Clinton camp--and a fair gripe. . . . This may not be quite the Obama of the popular imagination, and it is certainly not the Obama of his own campaign ads."

EXALTING NON-WESTERN CULTURES: An ancient Western tradition.

MARK PENN: "Why Hillary, Not Obama, is the Democrat to Beat McCain."

But is she the Democrat to beat Obama? . . . .

APPRECIATING JOHN HOWARD, now that he's gone.

FIFTY YEARS OF teaching math.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Henry Waxman swears off earmarks this year:

This pesky earmark issue just won't go away.

After members of the majority had all but ignored Republican calls for a one-year moratorium on lawmaker-requested projects, one prominent Demorcrat stoked those dying embers on Tuesday; Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry A. Waxman (Calif.) issued a released pledging not to request special projects in any of the upcoming spending bills this year. And he recommended his colleagues to do the same.

"We have a problem in Congress," Waxman said. "Congressional spending through earmarks is out of control."

He's right. And this puts pressure on the G.O.P. to stay serious on this issue.

HELLER V. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Here's a roundup of commentary on many of the amicus briefs filed in the Heller case. Note that we have pro-individual rights briefs representing both a majority of Congress and a majority of state attorneys general.

Plus, pro-gun-rights briefs from gay rights and women's groups.

A REVOLUTION: Andrew Marcus has video from the Chicago auto show.

PROGRESS IN BERKELEY:

After a day of enraged confrontation outside Berkeley City Hall between anti-war and pro-military demonstrators, the City Council appeared ready late Tuesday night to rescind its controversial decision to tell the U.S. Marines they are "unwelcome intruders" for operating a downtown recruiting center.

A majority of the nine-member council also leaned toward issuing a statement declaring that it is opposed to the war in Iraq but supports U.S. troops.

Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. So let's accept that tribute in this case. And congrats to the "pro-military demonstrators." It's not 1969 any more, even in Berkeley.

IMAD MUGHNIYAH is dead.

More background on this happy event here. Plus this:

"Bin Laden is a schoolboy in comparison with Mughniyeh," says an Israeli who knows Mughniyeh . "The guy is a genius, someone who refined the art of terrorism to its utmost level. We studied him and reached the conclusion that he is a clinical psychopath motivated by uncontrollable psychological reasons, which we have given up trying to understand. The killing of his two brothers by the Americans only inflamed his strong motivation."

Well, being blown up should dampen that motivation quite a bit.

NOW HIRING at Penney's.

THE MESSIAH COMES TO MADISON: Uncle Jimbo reports from an Obama rally.

February 12, 2008

KISSINGER MEETS THE BLOGGERS: "The country cannot try to escape the battle with Islam by withdrawing from Afghanistan and Iraq, he said, for such a withdrawal would have 'not just long-term consequences, but immediate consequences.'" Plus this: "Mr. Kissinger noted that he had been asked to limit his remarks about Mr. Podhoretz to 10 minutes. 'If I do, you can all say you were present at a historical event,' he said. Indeed he made the cutoff." Sounds like the Power Line Book Award was a big event. Sorry I couldn't make it.

JONATHAN ADLER: "I understand why conservatives have misgivings about McCain — I share many of them — but what I do not understand is how some find Huckabee to be a more acceptable 'conservative' candidate. McCain has his share of heresies, to be sure, but they pale in comparison to those of the Huckster — and Huckabee's foreign policy experience is scarcely greater than Barack Obama's."