May 10, 2008

CLINTON TO OBAMA: Kentucky counts! I don't see why it should count less than North Carolina.

HMM: FBI probe nets counterfeit Chinese networking parts. "The criminal probe, code-named Operation Cisco Raider, was prompted by concerns that counterfeit network components could give hackers access to government databases."

"YOU HAD ME AT 'tax the wealthy.'" Heh.

WHO NEEDS CDS? Cheap MP3 downloads.

DAVE KOPEL LOOKS AT Hillary Clinton and gun owners.

PHIL BOWERMASTER: The (Solar) Singularity is Near.

DO ANTIDEPRESSANTS ENHANCE IMMUNE FUNCTION? Well, depression tends to impair immunity.

BRINGING BACK "HERITAGE BRANDS" -- including Kern's bread and Kay's Ice Cream.

HEZBOLLAH AND ITS APOLOGISTS.

IS IT TIME TO INVADE BURMA? Man, those neocons will stop at nothing.

JOHN KASS: Obama unstained by Chicago Way. "Will Barack Obama's presidential candidacy serve his state and city by finally drawing national attention to the sleazy and corrupt politics of Illinois and Chicago?"

MEGAN MCARDLE ON MIDDLE CLASS DEBT: It's hard to know what this means for the economy; the graph looks bad, but lots of economic graphs look bad without actually indicating bad news. Personally, however, I'm quite averse to debt -- nearly as much so as my wife! -- and I suspect that many people would be happier if they incurred less. I'm not saying everyone should go the full Dave Ramsey route, but if you've ever listened to financial call-in shows like his or Suze Orman's you know that there are people out there who have incurred a lot more debt than any reasonable person should. But is it a national problem? Perhaps not.

MORE ON MASSACHUSETTS' PLAN to tax college endowments over $1 billion.

BECOMING A LAW SCHOOL ICON!

AN OBAMA FLIP-FLOP ON TALKS WITH IRAN. Coupled with a denial of said flipflop, and an embarrassing transcript.

THE RETURN OF THE OFFICE AFFAIR: I blame George Bush! (Possibly NSFW).

CAR LUST: The Porsche 928: "It is inconceivable to me that the Porsche 928 doesn't have a more glorious reputation than it does. What was one of the all-time great cars of the 1980s (with some spillover from the 1970s and into the 1990s) is remarkably often regarded as a bloated, fat, ugly failure of a car, somehow barely worthy of the Porsche name. Bah!"

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL looks at judicial reform in Tennessee. (Via Point of Law, which has more). I don't believe, however, that -- despite what the WSJ story suggests -- Tennessee courts are particularly friendly to trial lawyers.

BILL ARDOLINO REPORTS FROM SADR CITY. Like Michael Yon and Michael Totten he's supported by reader donations.

ROGER KIMBALL: Some disadvantages of sainthood.

THEY'LL SELL! Patriotic Barack Obama lapel pins unveiled honoring all 57 states. Heh. I still like this Obama pin, but it's probably too subtle. Though if I were McCain I'd wear one at the first debate . . . .

HE IS FIGHTING FOR HIS WOMAN'S HONOR, which is more than she ever did.

KEVIN DRUM ON OIL PRICES AND DRIVING HABITS: I think it'll take a while to see if there are lasting changes in people's behavior, but it would be a strange thing indeed if people didn't respond to higher gas prices by figuring out ways to use less, either by driving less, driving more slowly, or getting more efficient vehicles. (My brother has retired his truck to occasional haulage duties and is now commuting to work in a Mazda 3, bought used. He was going to sell the truck, but it's got 150K miles on it and is worth very little on the resale market anyway -- he said looking at used car prices suggests that gas hogs are selling at a much steeper discount than a few months ago, and more efficient used cars are selling at a premium.)

THE TECHNOLOGY BEHIND SPEED RACER.

WEST VIRGINIA POLL: Hillary Clinton by 38.

UPDATE: West Virginia Could Spell Trouble for Obama. Wait, I thought it was all over . . .

HYBRID UPDATE: Spy shots of the Fisker Karma.

IN THE MAIL: Marwan Muasher's The Arab Center: The Promise of Moderation.

LAMAR ALEXANDER'S 7-STEP PLAN for energy independence. He's getting a fairly lukewarm response in the comments so far.

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, even mentioning constitutional rights could be banned. And they were right! "Lawyers for Mayor Bloomberg are asking a judge to ban any reference to the Second Amendment during the upcoming trial of a gun shop owner who was sued by the city."

UH OH: "A lethal variant on an ancient disease affecting wheat has spread from its base in Africa to Iran and now threatens vast fields in South Asia, the Middle East and Europe at a time of global food shortages, agricultural specialists warn."

A LOOK AT Democrats, gun control, and the Second Amendment. "Democrats have run away from gun control because they think it's a major reason they lost swing states in the last two presidential elections."

A COMEBACK IN BRITAIN: What the Republicans can learn from the Tories. They'd better learn something from somebody . . . .

CINDY MCCAIN WON'T RELEASE HER TAX RETURNS: You could try to put a feminist-independence spin on this, I guess, but in the post-Clinton era the notion that a First Lady isn't part of the overall political operation is going to be a tough sell.

UPDATE: See what I mean? "Michelle won't let Barack pick Hillary as VP."

SOMETHING I MISSED in the run-up to the North Carolina Primary, from K.C. Johnson: "Obama was, of course, the only presidential candidate of either party to support a DOJ investigation of Mike Nifong. . . . Hillary Clinton remained silent on the issue, even though one of her constituents was among the falsely accused." Bravo for Obama. Boo for Hillary. (Via Tom Maguire).

I CAN'T SAY I'M SURPRISED TO HEAR THIS: "Experts say sex abstinence program doesn't work."

JACK KELLY: Obama Needs a History Lesson.

In his victory speech after the North Carolina primary, Sen. Barack Obama said something that is all the more remarkable for how little it has been remarked upon.

In defending his stated intent to meet with America's enemies without preconditions, Sen. Obama said: "I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did."

That he made this statement, and that it passed without comment by the journalists covering his speech indicates either breathtaking ignorance of history on the part of both, or deceit.

Read the whole thing. And also Tom Maguire, who observes: "Think about this - the probable next President of the United States does not know even the broad outlines of the history of American foreign policy from WWII forward and does not know the history of Democratic icons Roosevelt or Truman. " Then there's the fact that he's still hazy about how many states there are in the Union . . . . "I would tell him to check the flag in his lapel, but of course he won't be wearing one."

IN MY EARLIER LAWNMOWER POST, I mentioned the coolness of lawnmowing robots. That subject gets more treatment in Slate, but of course it ends with a robophobic twist: "They have no idea what's coming."

AUSTIN BAY'S LATEST COLUMN is on Michael Yon's new book. You can also get a free copy of Yon's book by subscribing to Townhall Magazine.

MORE CHINA NEWS: "The United States is offering to help China in its fight against a viral infection that has killed 34 children, including two reported Friday, and sickened thousands of others."

BARACK OBAMA SACKS ADVISER OVER TALKS WITH HAMAS: "One of Barack Obama’s Middle East policy advisers disclosed yesterday that he had held meetings with the militant Palestinian group Hamas – prompting the likely Democratic nominee to sever all links with him." I hope he didn't tell them that Obama secretly supports NAFTA . . . .

It's a good thing for Obama that everybody thinks he's got the nomination locked up, because otherwise all this bad news would do some damage.

THIS IS COOL: Data from Columbia disk drives survived the shuttle accident. After a lot of painstaking recovery work.

May 09, 2008

MATTHEW YGLESIAS RIPS ME for linking a Victor Davis Hanson quote charging Obama with having a socialist view of government. Well here's Yglesias' Atlantic co-blogger on Obama and corporations:

Gack. Now Obama is ranting about how he's going to make the corporations give us super fuel-efficient cars, find awesome new sources of oil, make renewable energy affordable, and invent a really delicious fat-free ice cream. However did we manage to get through the first 200 years without Barack Obama to beat some progress out of the corporations that have been holding us back?

To be fair, it's not clear if Obama is talking about "nationalization of the means of production," or something even stupider, but if I were an Obama booster I wouldn't be calling attention to the issue. Instead, I'd try to make sure Obama knew how many states are in America. Baby steps, baby steps . . . .

UGH: Wrecked Myanmar leaves India aid pilot speechless.

DANIEL DREZNER: Hillary Clinton's Inexcusable Bigotry -- toward the college-educated.

IF MCCAIN DID THIS: Marc Ambinder comments, "But if John McCain did this -- if he mistakenly said he'd visited 57 states -- the media would be all up in his grill, accusing him of a senior moment. Just saying...."

UPDATE: L.A. Times: "Barack Obama wants to be president of these 57 United States."

ANOTHER UPDATE: Tom Elia: "Personally, I don't think it was a 'tired mistake' as much as this is just how Chicago Democrats are used to counting during elections and election campaigns..."

MORE: "I love the way he pauses and really thinks before adding the '-seven.'"

MORE STILL: Can he spell potato? "This is much worse than anything Dan Quayle ever did." But there's no Obama-is-stupid narrative for it to reinforce.

STILL MORE: Dreaming of empire? "Grand Strategist (and likely Obama supporter) Thomas P.M. Barnett in his seminal work 'The Pentagon’s New Map' urged America to add several states to the nation, perhaps as many as a dozen. . . . I'm shocked that Obama apparently believes in a hyper-muscular 21st century version of Manifest Destiny. Truly, I didn't see that one coming."

FINALLY: Reader Jeff Cauthen emails: "Somebody should ask him to name all 114 US Senators."

MOWING IN PEACE AND QUIET: I've had one of these push-reel mowers since 2004, and it rocks. For anything up to an acre or so I think it's as good as gas, and if you have a bigger lot you might as well go to a riding mower. The only downside is you can't let the grass get too tall, and it doesn't do well with weeds. Although the muscular effort is higher than a gas mower, you're less tired at the end because it's not as noisy. Plus, it doesn't burn any gas. Not as cool as a robot lawn mower, maybe, but a lot cheaper.

NOAH POLLAK: The Lesson of Lebanon. "Islamic supremacist groups, despite their claims to the contrary, cannot be integrated into states or democratic political systems."

DAVID FONTANA:

When Bush v. Gore was decided in December of 2000, everyone thought it was a hugely significant case. But was Bush v. Gore a significant case after all?

When the votes were actually counted, after the fact, they showed that Bush would have won anyway. Nearly eight years later, it is safe to say that the case has not generated a jurisprudential revolution, even though a panel of Ninth Circuit judges tried to stop the California recall election by relying on Bush v. Gore, only to be overturned by an en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit. The Supreme Court has not cited the case at all, as far as I know, since Bush v. Gore was decided. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a constitutional law case decided in the past eight years that has been referenced less than Bush v. Gore has been referenced.

So was all the hoopla a waste?

STEM-CELL PROGRESS: Faster, please.

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, members of the press would find themselves taxed and corralled at the whim of Kenneth Starr. And they were right!

HILLARY CLINTON AS Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction? That's kind of harsh.

UPDATE: Armando says it's not just harsh, it's sexism.

HMM: In big concession, militia agrees to let Iraqi troops into Sadr City. "Followers of rebel cleric Muqtada al Sadr agreed late Friday to allow Iraqi security forces to enter all of Baghdad's Sadr City and to arrest anyone found with heavy weapons in a surprising capitulation that seemed likely to be hailed as a major victory for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki." It's looking as if Maliki had a better idea of what he was doing than various press-and-pundit types in the United States.

UPDATE: More commentary here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A cynical take from Jules Crittenden. Which doesn't mean he's wrong, God knows . . . .

BARACK OBAMA: Too Thin-Skinned to Be President?

For all the hype about Barack Obama being some new kind of politician, in one respect he is very similar to recent Democratic presidential nominees: He takes criticism very badly, responding to it by getting both defensive and nasty. It is a most unattractive quality.

And it involves passing up more constructive responses, as Michael Totten noted.

BEIRUT CLASHES TRAP CITIZENS: A firsthand report.

AT THE MODERATE VOICE, Dennis Sanders on John McCain.

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: The recession that wasn't.

TESLA VS. VOLT: Balancing the weight of expectations:

Cars like the Tesla Roadster and Chevy Volt are one reason I think the auto industry is entering one of the most fascinating decades in its history. For the first time in almost a century, the internal-combustion engine is no longer the default powertrain choice for automakers; true innovation and experimentation, not just continuous refinement and clever marketing, will be the cost of entry into the business.

Thing is, while it's okay for a company like Tesla to innovate and experiment, a lot of folks seem mighty uncomfortable when GM tries it.

Read the whole thing. I agree about the excitement, and that's a big, big difference between now and the oil-shock era of the 1970s.

AN OPEN LETTER TO Gil Grissom, Lead Detective of CSI.

NASA IS LOOKING AT A manned asteroid landing.

DANIEL DREZNER IS NOW A FULL PROFESSOR: What's the big deal? "Unless you're actually a full professor, you would never know." Now he's got nothing to look forward to but the endowed chair. What's the big deal about that? Well . . . .

OUCH: "It's a fair bet that no high-powered American law firm will lend a caring hand to the relatives of the seven Iraqis murdered last month by a suicide bomber named Abdullah Salih Al Ajmi and two accomplices. That's too bad, seeing as how Ajmi was himself a beneficiary of some of that high-powered legal help."

IF HE WERE A REPUBLICAN, THIS WOULD BE A BIGGER STORY: "Bernie Ward, the most prominent liberal voice on Bay Area talk radio for more than two decades, admitted Thursday to distribution of child pornography by e-mail in a plea deal that will send him to federal prison for at least five years. Ward, 57, a former Roman Catholic priest, was a fixture on KGO-AM 810 for three hours every weeknight, known in recent years for his fervent denunciations of President Bush and the war in Iraq during his news talk show. He also hosted 'God Talk,' a Sunday morning program on religion, and was a prolific fundraiser for the station's charity drives."

Plus, chin-pulling pieces about how the sexual repression of the right naturally leads to such things.

PROFITING FROM CLIMATE CHANGE: "Al Gore blames the Burma tragedy on global warming despite growing evidence to the contrary. Could the hype be related to his financial interests?" It's no crazier than the Cheney-Halliburton connections!

UPDATE: ThinkProgress claims the Gore quote is bogus. Which still leaves it no crazier than the Cheney Halliburton connections!

MORE ON MEASLES: "The Centers for Disease Control reports a surge in measles outbreaks; almost all the cases are in children who never received the routine shots for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR). Vanquished diseases are rebounding thanks to growing--but groundless--fears over the safety of traditional vaccines. Driven by those fears, ever more parents are finding a way to forgo shots for their children--even though shots are required in most of the nation. And some politicians are encouraging them. A proposed New York law, sponsored by Suffolk County Assemblyman Marc Alessi, would establish a 'philosophical' exemption to mandatory childhood vaccinations."

I'll buy it, if I they'll indulge my "philosophical" objections to taxes and speed limits.

NEW IDEA IN MORTUARY SCIENCE: Dissolving bodies with lye. "The process is called alkaline hydrolysis and was developed in this country 16 years ago to get rid of animal carcasses." They're going to need a better sales pitch for this to catch on . . . .

TOM WOLFE: Journalist, author, patriot.

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: Stimulus check direct-deposits meet "complications."

DUKE RAPE HOAX UPDATE: A look at prosecutor Mike Nifong's bankruptcy petition.

AN AMUSING TIME-TRAVEL STORY, told in Wiki discussion form.

AUTOBLOG: We're telling you for the last time -- ethanol is not biodiesel. The guy in the picture looks a bit like James Lileks, but I'm pretty sure James knows his ethanol . . . .

IN THE MAIL: Austin Dacey's The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life.

SUBURBAN WILDERNESS: This pond sits inside the southeast cloverleaf at the Pelissippi Parkway / Kingston Pike interchange. You'd never know it was surrounded by bustling roads, except for the barely-visible bit of billboard in the background at the upper center-right.

A RACIAL-HARASSMENT NIGHTMARE: "In November, I was found guilty of 'racial harassment' for reading a public-library book on a university campus." The book was an anti-Klan book, but the $106,000-a-year affirmative-action officer didn't want to hear the truth from the janitor who was reading it. Race and class on the modern university campus . . . . Excerpt:

A friend reacted to the finding with, "That's impossible!" He's right. You can't commit racial harassment by reading an anti-Klan history.

For months, I felt isolated and dejected. Yet I knew that most of the faculty, staff and students at Indiana University were good people. The campus is a growing, thriving part of Indy, where people of all colors and religions come to study.

But the $106,000-a-year affirmative-action officer who declared me guilty of "racial harassment" never spoke to me or examined the book. My own union - the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees - sent an obtuse shop steward to stifle my freedom to read. He told me, "You could be fired," that reading the book was "like bringing pornography to work."

Shame on the affirmative-action people and my union for displaying their ignorance and incompetence. Their pusillanimous actions, in trying to ban Tucker's anti-Klan history book, played into the hands of the hateful KKK.

After months of stonewalling, the university withdrew the charge, thanks to pressure from the press, the American Civil Liberties Union and a group called the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE.

F.I.R.E. does good work. And congrats to the ACLU and the press here, too.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

Can you believe that this school spends $106K/year on a "diversity" officer and they're so starved for work that they prosecute this case???? What other career options could a diversity offer have to drive up their pay so high?

If you want to know where higher education can trim the fat, there's a start. You can hire a pretty good neuroscience researcher for that kind of money. :)

[Please don't use my name. I may need a job someday.]

I recommend switching fields to diversity-enforcement. it seems lucrative, and not terribly burdened with accountability or due process.

A LOOK AT THE STATE OF academic blogging.

DANIEL HENNINGER: Obama vs. McCain: Let's Get It On! At one time, the Wall Street Journal would have eschewed such vulgarisms, but I guess that was pre-Murdoch. Anyway, Henninger writes:

Barack Obama, the first "postracial candidate," is heading to the Democratic nomination almost entirely because of his near-universal support from black voters in the Democratic primaries. In both states Tuesday, his share of that vote was 90% or more. If one resets the black vote to the norm of earlier elections, Hillary Clinton is the nominee. . . .

Hillary Clinton, who now resembles the robot's crawling hand in the final scenes of "The Terminator," can plausibly argue to the superdelegates that much of this is electoral bunk. In Indiana, her share of the white vote to his, men and women combined, was 60-40, a huge lead. In North Carolina, 61-37.

They won't buy it. Ever. . . . The Democratic superdelegates are products of their party – nice liberals, nice people. To stiff Obama's black voters at this late hour, most of the superdelegates would have to be as hard and clinical about politics as the Clintons. They aren't.

Read the whole thing, including this conclusion: "If John McCain can't talk the American people out of re-Carterizing themselves, what has he been preparing for all these years?"

CONN CARROLL: Why are liberals actively helping terrorists?

I SAW A FEATURE BY NEIL CAVUTO last night on food stockpiling, in which one of his correspondents explained how he'd spent $1500 at Costco stocking up against shortages. You know, if you have stories like this on TV regularly, you'll get food shortages at stores even if there's no actual shortage in supply, because today's just-in-time inventory practices mean that there's no real slack for sudden increases in demand. The empty shelves will then promote panic and more stockpiling, setting the stage for the equivalent of a bank-run on grocery stores even if there's no actual reason. I'm all for people keeping a good-sized supply of food at home in case of emergencies, but press people who cover this need to do so responsibly.

On the other hand, if they create a crisis, then they can report on the crisis. Your media at work!

BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH: Too little sleep -- or too much. It's not really clear, though, whether health problems lead to sleep problems or vice versa. Also, too much or too little sleep is associated with obesity.

IPHONE 2.0: The song remains the same.

OKAY, SO I'VE GOT THE NEW HP Mini-Note 9" laptop, which I'll be reviewing for Popular Mechanics. It's pretty cool -- only slightly bigger than the Asus, but with a better keyboard and full-scale features and much handsomer -- but beyond that I'll wait for the PM piece to provide a review. So far I've been using it for less than a day.

But I wanted to put a word processor on it, and I didn't want to go digging for my USB CD drive (the HP is bigger than the Asus, but too little to have its own optical drive), so I just downloaded OpenOffice instead, since I'd been meaning to give it a try anyway. I used OpenOffice's word processor to write my review of Ron Paul's book, and I have to say I really liked it. It's easy and intuitive, and it's much, much closer to my beloved WordPerfect than to Word. Also, it's free. I'd have to try it on something really long, like a law review article with lots of footnotes, to be sure how I feel, but I really enjoyed my testdrive. Using Word always feels like work. Using OpenOffice just felt like writing. And did I mention it's free?

UPDATE: More on OpenOffice from Bill Quick, who likes it. And reader Steven Sullivan emails:

I put out a few biomedical literature reviews per year, generally with 80-90 references each, and OpenOffice handles those nicely. It was a little tricky getting it to use Arabic numerals with endnotes at first, but once I figured that out it ran very smoothly. And of course, it distills PDFs of your documents perfectly with one button. There are some things it's difficult to get OpenOffice to do (e.g. full-bleed page backgrounds, linking complex or altered pagination to TOCs) but there are workarounds.

I still deal with completely unstable Word documents all the time, generally with heavy use of Styles and with comments and edits in track changes -- they get corrupted, they crash the application, etc. I've never had an OpenOffice document behave that way.

Hopefully the feds will allow OpenDocument as a standard so small businesses like mine won't have to shell out money to Mr. Gates just to do business with our own government.

If you ever do any desktop publishing you might want to look at Scribus.

So what will Microsoft be selling in 5 years?

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here.

CAPTAIN'S JOURNAL: Ending Iran's Influence Inside Iraq.

THE HARMONIC CONVERGENCE OF IDIOCY CONTINUES: Code Pink Protesters Try Witchcraft at Anti-Marine Rallies.

MICKEY KAUS OFFERS a two-factor explanation for the Democratic primary results.

UPDATE: More thoughts from Robert Novak: "Buyer's remorse was beginning to afflict supporters of Barack Obama before Tuesday's primary election returns showed he had delivered a knockout punch against Hillary Clinton. The young orator who had seemed so fantastic, beginning with his 2007 Jefferson-Jackson dinner speech in Iowa, disappointed even his own advisers over the past two weeks, and old party hands mourned that they were stuck with a flawed candidate. . . . Clinton's failure Tuesday was a product of demographics rather than Obama's campaign skill. Consistently winning more than 90 percent of the African American vote, Obama is unbeatable in a primary where the black electorate is as large as it is in North Carolina (half the registered Democratic vote there). Indiana differed from seemingly similar Ohio and Pennsylvania, where Clinton scored big wins, because it borders Obama's state of Illinois and many of its voters live in the Chicago media market." Plus he got a lot of help from Lake County. On the other hand, Hillary got a lot of help from Rush Limbaugh, so maybe it evens out . . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: More on Indiana from Rishawn Biddle: "The biggest mistake by Clinton was in presuming that Indiana was like just another Rust Belt state. The reality is that it is a microcosm of the entire nation, with the almost all the same socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. In some ways, its combination of rural and urban gives it more of a resemblance to nearby Illinois or New York than Ohio or Iowa. "

A MEDIA COUP IN LEBANON: HEZBOLLAH'S SUBTLE TAKEOVER: "Hezbollah's militant takeover of Beirut and its systematic destruction of the authority of the state and freedom of the press suggests a sophisticated and planned campaign to take power. There is no hiding the violence Hezbollah used to seize Beirut and cut it off from the rest of the country. But as their media campaign is already showing, Hezbollah is employing subtle and sophisticated mechanisms to take over the rest of Lebanon." And, of course, Iran and Syria are the real puppet-masters here.

GOOD NEWS: PRIVATE SPACE STATION HITS ORBITAL MILESTONE:

A prototype module for a private space station has passed an orbital milestone after completing its 10,000th trip around the Earth.

Genesis 1, an inflatable module built by the Las Vegas, Nev.-based firm Bigelow Aerospace, passed the 10,000-orbit mark as it nears the beginning of its third year of unmanned operations, its builders announced late Thursday.

Bigelow Aerospace launched Genesis 1 atop a converted intercontinental ballistic missile on July 12, 2006 to test its ability to self-inflate and operate in Earth orbit.

Now, more 660 days later, the spacecraft's exterior cameras have taken some 14,000 images that include snapshots of all seven of Earth's continents. Its solar panels have also continuously powered electrical systems for about 15,840 hours, Bigelow Aerospace officials said.

Very promising.

AND RIGHTLY SO: UN blasts Myanmar for visa policy on aid workers.

A GROWING MEASLES OUTBREAK in Toronto.

LARRY JOHNSON: The Obama Democrats' Ostrich Moment. "The full-court press to force Hillary from the presidential race ain't working. She will win the West Virginia, Kentucky, and Puerto Rico primaries."

IN CANADA, MORE PUSHBACK AGAINST THEIR KANGAROO-COURT "HUMAN RIGHTS" COMMISSIONS:

Once upon a time, it was simply a pain in the butt.

For the last two years, though, the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) has become an out-of-control juggernaut, rolling over unsuspecting bystanders in its path.

Fair enough, OHRC has always been a tad controversial -- some might say off-the-wall -- in its rulings.

But recent changes, and the way they are being implemented by Commissioner Barbara Hall, are pitting human rights protection against our fundamental rights to freedom of speech and freedom of religion. . . .

Attorney General Chris Bentley and Premier Dalton McGuinty should rein Hall in before she tramples every right we hold dear.

Indeed.

TURNING GLOOMY, WINDOWLESS PRISONS into light and airy space!

May 08, 2008

GATEWAY PUNDIT HAS MORE ON THE AL-MASRI ARREST, including this: "There are reports that al-Masri set up terrorist training camps in Iraq after he fled Afghanistan when the Taliban fell back in 2001."

Remember how Richard Clarke was worried that Osama would "boogie to Baghdad" if we invaded Afghanistan? Well, I guess he was right to worry, in general if not in specific. . . . I guess it's no big surprise -- Saddam offered bin Laden asylum back in 1999 -- but given that nowadays a lot of people pretend that any kind of cooperation between Saddam and Al Qaeda is unimaginable, it's worth pointing out.

But don't make too much of these reports until they're confirmed. As Bill Roggio notes, it's best to wait for confirmation from the U.S. military, which hasn't happened yet.

UPDATE: And that's good advice, because here's a report that it wasn't Al-Masri after all.

HAS HILLARY BECOME THE DEMOCRATS' psycho ex-girlfriend? (Via Katie Granju).

CONGRESS: Meet the New Trough, Same as the Old Trough. And they promised us change!

LOTS OF UPDATES ON THE SITUATION IN LEBANON, at Michael Totten's blog.

IN TENNESSEE 300 National Guard soldiers from Campbell County just got back from Iraq, after a year in which they suffered no casualties. Congratulations, and welcome back.

UPDATE: Related thoughts from The Mudville Gazette.

MCCAIN CAMPAIGN: "We have all become familiar with Senator Obama's new brand of politics. First, you demand civility from your opponent, then you attack him, distort his record and send out surrogates to question his integrity. It is called hypocrisy, and it is the oldest kind of politics there is. . . . We understand why Senator Obama doesn't want to engage in a debate over leadership and judgment with John McCain, but the American people demand that debate take place."

Background here. Obama wants to run a training-wheels campaign while demanding that his opponents walk a tightrope. Well, hell, who wouldn't want that?

UPDATE: In the comments, some good advice for Obama from Michael Totten:

Obama could easily make this go away: “Hamas will be VERY sorry if I am America’s president. They need to be careful what they wish for.” He doesn’t have to say anything else, but I doubt it occurs to anyone on his staff to go after Hamas instead of McCain. To me, that’s the obvious fix. What could McCain possibly say after that?

Alas, however, Obama's instinct was to strike out at McCain instead.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Scott Slater emails:

Dear Glenn,

Got the 2008 Democratic Presidential Survey in the mail today.

Question #7 - " Do you believe that John McCain's pledge to keep troops in Iraq for another 100 years will be a liability in the General Election?"

I answered "No. He didn't say that. You are smearing him."

Question #11 asks "How likely do you think it is that John McCain and his Republican allies will launch a "Swift Boat" style smear campaign against our presidential nominee?"

I checked "Not Likely, but I noticed you have (see question 7)."

It's the new politics of change and hope! And by "checked," I presume he means "wrote in," as I doubt that was one of the original options . . . .

OMAR FADHIL: Iranian-Made Rocket Discovered Near Basra Alarms Iraqis.

ABU AYYUB AL-MASRI, HEAD OF AL QAEDA IN IRAQ, has been captured. Some thoughts on what it means at The Belmont Club.

RACHEL LUCAS ON FIREFLY: "Forget C.S. Lewis - I’m pretty sure the cancellation of this show after only one season is proof there is no God. Seven years of American Idol on the same network that gave us only one year of Firefly. Do the quantum math on that one." The good news is, it's coming out on Blu-Ray soon. But that's scant consolation. How about another season?

HUMAN RIGHTS PROGRESS: "A Malaysian Islamic court allowed a Muslim convert Thursday to return to her original faith of Buddhism, setting a precedent that could ease religious minorities' worries about their legal rights. Lawyers said the Shariah High Court's verdict in the northern state of Penang was the first time in recent memory that a convert has been permitted to legally renounce Islam in this Muslim-majority nation."

RICHARD KAHLENBERG: Still Forgotten: Low Income Students At Selective Colleges.

TEN HEALTH-TECHNOLOGY BREAKTHROUGHS. And here's one that's not even newsworthy: My mother-in-law had cataract surgery, and now has implanted toric lenses. She says she sees better than she did when she was 12.

THE FIVE GREATEST MOVIE TEACHERS: Plus one honorable mention.

TENNESSEE POLITICS: A Ford family fracture. More background here.

CRAVING AMERICAN DEFEAT in Iraq. It's not an isolated phenomenon, unfortunately.

RETHINKING THE IRAQ CRITICS: Michael Barone has a column on Doug Feith's new book, War and Decision. "There's still much to be learned about our decisions, good and bad, in Iraq. But Feith's book is a step forward, as were those of Sherwood and Churchill 60 years ago." I'm surprised it's not getting more attention. Maybe if it weren't an election year. . . .

GALLUP: Obama's Support Similar to Kerry's in 2004. Now there's a headline to start champagne corks popping at DNC headquarters . . . .

HEATH SHULER endorses Hillary Clinton.

LABOUR SLUMPING IN BRITAIN. "LABOUR has slumped to its lowest point since records began in the 1930s, a devastating Sun poll reveals tonight. And the Tories are enjoying their second biggest poll lead in history."

ARE "HYPERMILERS" A MENACE ON THE ROAD? "There are hypermilers who claim to get over 100mpg from their Priuses and Insights. The problem is that techniques like pulse and glide involve significant fluctuations in speed." Don't do this where there's traffic. Interesting discussion in the comments. Plus, this: 104 eco-driving tips. And should we be rating cars based on gallonage rather than mileage?

THE PARTY OF SAM'S CLUB: "The GOP is now a working-class party (with class defined by education and culture more than income, just to be clear; there are plenty of skilled craftsmen who make more money than teachers and journalists and academics), and that it needs to start acting like one if it's going to rebuild its shattered majority."

I GET AN EMAIL NEWSLETTER from an oil trader and today it includes this tidbit: "In an interesting twist of OPEC news – in the folder titled 'Adequate Supply' – Iran has chartered an armada of supertankers to act as floating storage for as many as 28 million barrels of crude oil that is backing up on them. Analysts are blaming worldwide refineries yet to recover from maintenance programs. It’s not the first time that Iran has had trouble finding buyers; they temporarily floated 20 million barrels in 2006. No, I can’t explain this in light of record oil prices and continual cries for more release of OPEC crude oil. "

U.S. crude stocks are up, too. This is unlikely to be the case, but here's a thought: If I were, say, the United States government, and I anticipated military action in the mideast that might interrupt oil supplies, I wouldn't want to stockpile directly because that would be a tipoff. But if I manipulated markets into running up stocks, I wouldn't have to. . . . Nah. They're not that smart.

UPDATE: Hmm.

VIDEO: Still sexy at sixty.

IS HAPPINESS IMPORTANT TO DEMOCRACY? If so, does that mean that politicians who are always trying to make people un happy are bad for democracy?

"UNWANTED SEXUAL CONTACT" AT COLLEGE: "It's part of the normal scene." And men report it at a frequency not much less than women: "About 7 percent of women and 4 percent of men report unwanted intercourse."

TARGETING TUMORS with nanoworms.

JOHN MCWHORTER on Hillary Clinton and the puzzling persistence of hope-based campaign tactics.

PLUS ME, WHO DIDN'T BOTHER TO EMAIL: 20,000 people express email interest in buying a Chevy Volt.

NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME: Congress, the Bush Administration, and disaster planning.

DUDE, WHERE'S MY RECESSION? (CONT'D): "U.S. unemployment lines got shorter last week, as the number of people filing for the first time for unemployment benefits fell by 18,000 to 365,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis in the week ended May 3, the Labor Department reported Thursday." Somewhat related item here.

UPDATE: In my backyard? This is more a problem of overspending -- we were running huge surpluses a couple of years ago, and the state budgeted up to them instead of socking the money away as some suggested -- than of recession. Unemployment in Knox County, where I live, is at just over 4%. Also, I think we're starting to see the usual budgetary posturing used by second-term governors in Tennessee who want a state income tax. We had the same thing under Gov. Don Sundquist.

[LATER: "Backyard" link above was wrong before. Fixed now. Sorry!]

AN EMBARRASSMENT FOR THE STATE DEPARTMENT: "It has surfaced that the US State Department can't account for up to about 1,000 laptops, perhaps as many as 400 of which belonged to the department's Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program."

NASRALLAH SPEAKS: More on Lebanon from Noah Pollak.

SATELLITE IMAGES of devastation in Burma.

MY INITIAL GUESS WAS "NO:" Does Sarbanes-Oxley Foster the Existence of Ethical Executive Role Models in the Corporation? But read the whole thing to see if I was right.

JOHN TIERNEY: Why superstition is logical.

IN THE MAIL: Robert Kagan's The Return of History and the End of Dreams. Blurbed by John McCain and Joe Lieberman. They make a good pair. Hmm . . . .

Melhorn Automotive, near Oliver Springs, Tennessee.

GETTING READY FOR A BIG PUSH IN SADR CITY, and a media-related prediction: "This will likely take weeks to complete. Once the battle starts, expect to read and hear plenty of media reports emphasizing civilian deaths, setbacks in the battle, defections in the Iraqi Army, and statements of defiance from Sadr. What we won’t hear is progress by Maliki and the US in finishing off Sadr’s forces until it suddenly becomes impossible to ignore it — and then we will hear about how inept the Iraqi forces were in achieving victory. Call it the Basra Narrative. Just because it failed in Basra doesn’t mean the defeatist media won’t use it again, and again, and again."

The basic rule of press coverage is that if there's fighting, we must be losing. All wars produce ups and downs, bad news and good. It's interesting, though, that our press seems mostly interested in making things look bad, though they're not even very good at reporting the bad news that matters. Some related thoughts here.

UPDATE: Reader Walter Boxx emails: "The way the Japanese could tell they were losing WWII was that the great victories reported by their media were getting closer and closer to home. Our media problem is like a fun-house mirror version of this - the way we can tell we are winning is that our crushing defeats are happening less often and to different enemies."

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader in Iraq whom I regard as reliable says to watch for some bad news from Basra in the next few days, though no specifics are included. Well, war generates good and bad news, so stay tuned. I have little doubt that the big-media crowd will be ever so swift in delivering it once it becomes public.

DEBUNKING Peak Oil catastrophism.

OBAMA IS RIGHT (CONT'D): Bread, Circuses, and Gas-Tax Holidays.

GEORGE SHULTZ ON PUTTING OUR ENTITLEMENTS IN ORDER: Something you can be sure no elected official will do unless absolutely forced. But maybe some of them will read Shultz's new book.

OBAMA THE ANSWER MAN: "As an example of Obama's leadership style it is not encouraging."

MORE ON THE NEW G.I. BILL at The Mudville Gazette. Greyhawk thinks the Democrats are setting things up to kill the G.I. Bill while blaming the GOP.

DEMOCRATIC FAMILY FIGHT? Or license to hate?

THOUGHTS ON husbands, wives, and "push presents," in the latest Ask Dr. Helen column.

JOHN MCCAIN ON The Daily Show.

MISSISSIPPI DRUG WAR BLUES: A short documentary on the Cory Maye case.

JULES CRITTENDEN: "Hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. Hillary’s in for the long haul." Ted Kennedy went to the convention in 1980 with a lot smaller share of the vote.

MORE ON HEZBOLLAH THUGGERY IN BEIRUT, including an ironic photo.

THOUGHTS ON ENERGY POLICY: "With the world's largest reserves of coal, after creating the nuclear power industry ex nihilo, and with billions of oil still under our soil and waters, it makes no sense to produce less energy while blaming and taxing those who produce what we have, rather than drilling, digging, and saving, as we find ways to transition to the alternate energies. . . . A postscript: I'm not sure that, ecologically speaking, drilling oil in about 2000 acres in the north of Alaska is all that different from dotting our mountain ridges and coasts (ask the Kennedys et al) with enormous windmills or creating vast acres of solar panels throughout our fragile deserts or covering our roofs with panels and pipes and assorted gadgetry."

SAM HARRIS ON Western wimpiness in the face of radical Islam: "It is time we recognized that those who claim the 'right not to be offended' have also announced their hatred of civil society." Exemplified, among other places, by the Washington Post, which commissioned but then refused to publish Harris's views. (Via Charles Johnson).

DUKE PROFESSORS ARE FEELING THE HEAT FOR THEIR PROMOTION OF THE DUKE RAPE HOAX. K.C. Johnson responds to their efforts at self-justification, and Jim Lindgren observes: "Why do these Duke professors bother to write about the Duke lacrosse hoax if they are not going to deal with their own actions honestly? If they can't simply face the truth, they should put down their shovels and stop digging."

RAJAN RISHYAKARAN on the Burmese cyclone response. Or lack thereof. And here are more thoughts from Megan McArdle.

XP SERVICE PACK 3: An existential threat? Maybe it's all a scam to boost Vista sales. . . .

I'VE SAID BEFORE that I'd believe that people were feeling the pinch of gas prices when they started driving more slowly. I haven't seen much evidence of that around here, but there's this report: Drivers Conserving Gas As Prices Continue To Rise. A close reading, however, suggests that the trend is less than universal: "Most drivers still appear to be winking at posted speed limits because they say their time is worth more than the gas they'd save by slowing down."

CHICAGOBOYZ: Academia's jihad against military history isn't working.

May 07, 2008

I MENTIONED DVDS EARLIER, and here's a buy two get one free Blu-Ray sale for those who are interested.

I'VE LINKED TO JERRY POURNELLE A LOT LATELY; if you enjoy his work you should at least consider subscribing. I did.

THE TELEGRAPH: Does Britain need more 'manly men'?

MICHAEL SILENCE: In ironic twist, the NYT refuses to release information.

It's not that ironic anymore. Much of "journalism" these days seems to involve deciding what we shouldn't be told.

JERRY POURNELLE:

As a product of the Korean GI Bill I can hardly denounce the concept. The problems really came when the intellectuals convinced people that "investment" in trade schools and such like wasn't as desirable as "investment" in higher education meaning universities. At the same time, the State Colleges became "State universities" and in the "upgrade" put more into graduate schools to the detriment of undergraduate education. We then poured more money into the "university" system which is quite unsuitable for education of more than about 25% of the population (I'd put that at a lower figure, but we can stay with that).

Now a lot of students who would do well at "college" level education can't get that; they have to go to "universities" and learn French Narrative Theory in Freshman Comp.

If investment is needed in "education" -- and it is -- it's in training in technical skills. Most of that could be done in high school. Of course the high school teachers don't want to work that hard and will stand in union solidarity with the college professors who want the large number of students willing to borrow money to go listen to foreign graduate students teach introductory math courses in incomprehensible dialects, but it's "world class" isn't it? Doesn't everyone deserve a "world class university education"?

So we continue to neglect the great majority of our citizens to benefit a handful of intellectuals. And they never catch wise.

Some related thoughts on debt and education here.

I'VE ALREADY MENTIONED FAREED ZAKARIA'S NEW BOOK, and comments on it by Lexington Green. Now here are some more thoughts worth reading, from Ross Douthat and Jim Manzi, who comments: "U.S. share of global economic output (on a purchasing power parity basis) has declined very slightly over the past twenty years – from about 21% to about 20%. But what has really happened over this period has been the rise of China and the rest of non-Japan Asia at the relative expense of Western Europe and Japan."

MORE ON BEIRUT: Gateway Pundit has a roundup.

DON SURBER: "Welcome to wild, Wonderful West Virginia, presidential candidates. Buy Internet ads."

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON OFFERS advice to the Republicans, and concludes with this observation: "Moving toward a lite version of the Obamian/European 'bipartisan'and socialist view of government and calling it a new conservatism is a prescription for utter disaster. No one can out-Obama Obama."

Indeed.

NOW! HAMPSHIRE is a new site by Patrick Hynes. Check it out.

UH OH: History of corruption clouds primary in northern Indiana.

IT HAS A NICE JETSONISH LOOK: VW Confirms 1L Concept Will Become Reality in 2010. "The VW 1L is so named because, in theory, it only consumes one liter of fuel per 100 kilometers traveled. For those of us in the US, this translates into about 235 MPG. Definitely far and above anything on the market currently." It is kinda low and small. But if they keep the Jetsonish look, it'll sell. If they shift to something more boring, it won't.

"PICK OBAMA: He's taller."

MEGAN MCARDLE: Is the Middle Class really doomed? "I've now seen this video at several liberal blogs, and someone has to stop it. Apparently, that someone is me, since no one else has stepped up. . . . As you can imagine, this thesis is extremely beloved of liberals, who like its endorsement of more government benefits, while ignoring the fact that this could equally well argue for having women stay home."

UPDATE: Reader J.D. Evans is unimpressed: "In response to whether the middle class is doomed: hasn't this doom been looming for decades? Perhaps this question can be a sort of test for the many similar proclamations we constantly hear from the left."

Well, it's often used as an excuse for adopting Euro-style economic policies. But those aren't helping the middle class in Europe.

GERARD VAN DER LEUN looks at Delta's latest cost-cutting move -- no more ticket-jackets! -- and observes: "I know I am far from alone when I say that after years of flying many times a year, often on a whim, I am now at the point where only the most powerful forces in life -- love and death -- can get me on a plane. It is not that the whole experience is uncomfortable, which it is, but that the process has become -- through a Satanic collusion between the airlines and government -- utterly dehumanizing. Bean-counters and bureaucrats have combined to create the one central experience of American life in which you are reduced to a hunk of meat."

MARC AMBINDER: 7 Reasons Why Clinton Should Stay in the Race.

NOAH POLLAK: Beirut is exploding.

EVIDENCE THAT EARTH MAY ONCE HAVE HAD multiple moons.

RICH SLOAN: Ten Reasons Why Everyone Should Own a Business.

LUNCH WITH Elvis Costello.

NEWS: $7 million pledged to longevity research. Faster, please.

A REVIEW OF THE Nissan GT-R. Sounds kinda cool, but I'm not likely to swap the RX-8 for one. I mean, it's cheap for a supercar, but it's not cheap, and the extra performance mostly falls in the "use it only when traversing Nevada" category. Also, the RX-8 is paid for . . . .

POPPING THE HIGHER ED. BUBBLE?

A READER EMAILS: "What happened? A few weeks ago Obama had to win Indiana to put Hillary away. She won, but now she's toast?" I guess they weren't able to gin up enough votes in Gary, despite the extra time . . . .

ANOTHER NO-KNOCK OUTRAGE: "What makes the case especially egregious is not that the police may have gotten