ACCORDING TO THIS REPORT, Colin Powell has made some last-minute changes in his U.N. presentation in the hopes of bringing Democrats on board.

NUKES IN SPACE: NASA is planning for nuclear spacecraft, and according to this Wired News article, it’s getting good reviews. Also, here’s a link-rich survey of the issue that I wrote a couple of weeks ago.

I HAVEN’T SEEN THE ARTICLE YET, but Media Minded reports that Michael Kelly is praising the blogosphere in the latest Atlantic Monthly.

EUGENE VOLOKH ADDRESSES the Nazis from Stormfront:

Look, if you’re still reading, don’t you get it? We call ourselves The Volokh Conspiracy. That’s obviously an allusion to the International Jewish Conspiracy, no? One of the creators of the Internet was Leonard Kleinrock — coincidence? I think not! We control the banks; we control the media; we’re sleeping with your daughters; now we’re controlling cyberspace. What’s the point of resisting, really?

No point at all.

I THINK THAT THESE REMARKS BY RICHARD PERLE were carefully timed.

SEVERAL TIMES I’VE MEANT TO LINK TO THIS ARTICLE BY MATTHEW PARRIS on how to be an honest critic of the war, but somehow I never did. My memory was jogged by seeing it on Mellow-Drama. If you haven’t seen it elsewhere, follow the link now. Excerpt:

Don’t, in summary, dress up moral doubt in the garb of wordlywise punditry. Give warning, by all means, of the huge gamble that allied plans represent, but if all you are talking is the probabilities, say so, and prepare to be vindicated or mocked by the outcomes. We are very quick to aver that Tony Blair will be discredited and humiliated if the war goes wrong. Will we be discredited and humiliated if the war goes right? If the basis of our objection was that the war would fail, that should follow.

I do not think that the war, if there is a war, will fail. I can easily envisage the publication soon of some chilling facts about Saddam’s armoury, a French and German scamper back into the fold, a tough UN second resolution, a short and successful war, a handover to a better government, a discreet change of tune in the biddable part of the Arab world, and egg all over the peaceniks’ faces.

I am not afraid that this war will fail. I am afraid that it will succeed.

I am afraid that it will prove to be the first in an indefinite series of American interventions. I am afraid that it is the beginning of a new empire: an empire that I am afraid Britain may have little choice but to join.

Well, that’s something to worry about. But it’s not as bad as, say, smallpox.

THE TWO WTC REPLACEMENT DESIGN FINALISTS have been announced. Hmm. I’m not overwhelmed by either. But what do I know?

TONY ADRAGNA RESPONDS to Gregg Easterbrook’s Time essay.

JIM HENLEY IS RIGHT: This post by Hesiod is thoughtful and temperate.

TODD GITLIN:

Anti-Americanism is an emotion masquerading as an analysis, a morality, an ideal, even an idea about what to do. When hatred of foreign policies ignites into hatred of an entire people and their civilization, then thinking is dead and demonology lives. When complexity of thought devolves into caricature, intellect is close to reconciling itself to mass murder.

One might have thought all this obvious. On the evidence of two of the works under review, it is not. Consider the sad case of Gore Vidal, once “a great wit” (in the words of Norman Mailer, who proceeded to skewer him), now a witless crank. Reposing in Ravello, Italy, Vidal maunders from snippet to snippet. His latest volume of musings manages to be skimpy and redundant at once. Collecting one’s Vanity Fair pieces as if they would stand up in book covers is an act of, well, vanity. That such an exercise should be escorted into the world by the Nation’s book publishing arm speaks unflatteringly about publishing standards on the left.

There’s much, much more.

A PACK, NOT A HERD: Several people have emailed me that NASA has set up a site where people can upload images and video that may help with the Columbia investigation. Great idea.

UPDATE: This is good, too.

ANOTHER UPDATE: So is this!

MORE ON VLOGGING from Jeff Jarvis.

IT’S NOT A FISKING, but Rand Simberg has a lengthy and thoughtful response to Gregg Easterbrook’s Time essay on the Space Shuttle. Don’t miss it.

MEGAN MCARDLE RESPONDS to letters of concern from close friends.

ANOTHER ROBOSEXUAL COMES OUT OF THE CLOSET.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

UPDATE: Then there’s RoboJournalism. Heh.

ERIC ALTERMAN IS TOUTING HIS NEW BOOK, and he even has a fancy website where you can read the first chapter for free.

I’ve read the book (I wrote a bit about it here) and I’m going to write more about it later. For now, I’ll just say that his thesis depends on a particular definition of “liberal.”

CATS AND DOGS, LIVING TOGETHER: Porphyrogenitus is praising Stanley Fish.

ONE OF THE STORIES THAT I’VE NEGLECTED because of the Columbia matter — er, except that “neglected” would suggest that this was my job or something — is this one about a California medical-marijuana prosecution that seems like a travesty of justice to me. Jeez.

I should note that the incentive program for prosecutors that I propose here would quickly put an end to these kinds of abuses, where jurors — once they find out the truth — regret their verdicts.

UPDATE: Here’s more from Kos, Kevin Drum, and notorious lefty Bill Quick.

THE WAX TADPOLE WONDERS if Rumsfeld’s Old Europe / New Europe statement has started something:

His “Old Europe/New Europe” meme is taking hold broadly and in some surprising places (see the Vanguardia article cited here at Iberian Notes) and “New Europe” is becoming a rallying cry for the forces that want to save Europe from itself.

The sputtering outrage from the establishment and the chattering classes serves only to highlight the difference between the dynamic and forward-looking “new” Europeans and stodgy, reactionary old Europe. I’m sure the “age is wisdom” tack seemed clever in the heat of battle, but by using it they’ve endorsed the notion that there really is a “new” Europe and placed themselves firmly in opposition to it. Once tempers have cooled, they’ll find themselves on the wrong side of a real and growing divide.

Interesting.

UPDATE: Reader Ted Nolan quotes Robert Heinlein: “It’s amazing how much ‘mature wisdom’ resembles being too tired.”

TIM NOAH ASKS if John Lott is the Michael Bellesiles of the right. (It’s carefully posed as an unanswered question, perhaps on the advice of Microsoft’s libel lawyers . . . .)

Noah does a good job of summing up the developments so far in one convenient package. I think it’s fair to say that the serious charges against Lott — falsely claiming to have done an unpublished survey in 1997 — are unproven, while the proven charges against Lott — using a pseudonym on the Internet — are embarrassing and reflect badly on him, but are not terribly serious.

But even if the serious charge were true, something that is so far a matter of conjecture rather than actual evidence, I think it would be an exaggeration to equate that to Michael Bellesiles’ misconduct, though it’s easy to understand why some people would like to do so.

Bellesiles, after all, was found to have fabricated research that was crucial to the thesis of a published academic work. Lott is accused of claiming to have done a study that was never published at all. If proven, that would be serious misconduct, but it’s possible for misconduct to be serious and still not rise to the level of the Bellesiles affair, which is probably the most serious case of academic fraud in the past decade. And, again, I can see why some people would like to blur that distinction (as Noah does by simply posing the question), but it’s a distinction nonetheless.

A better analogy might be to historian Joseph Ellis, who falsely claimed to have seen combat in Vietnam — a claim that, if true, might have lent greater force to his scholarship and public statements, but that was not in fact part of his published scholarship. Ellis’s conduct was serious, though not so serious as Bellesiles’, and he was punished — he was suspended for a year — but he’s now back delivering keynote lectures at prestigious conferences. One might argue, I suppose — as lawyers sometimes do — that a person who has lied on one subject presumably lies on others. But if such arguments are to be directed at Lott, one must wonder why they have not been directed at Ellis, and whether those who espouse politically-incorrect views might one day enjoy the same opportunities for genteel rehabilitation. Like Noah, I’ll just ask that question, and not answer it.

UPDATE: Reader Raphael Laufer writes:

I think that you understate a bit what Lott is accused of doing: it’s not just claiming to have done a survey when he may not have — it’s fabricating the result of the survey and presenting that as evidence in a book. That this is only one instance makes it different in scale, not in kind, from Bellesiles’ fraud. As to Joseph Ellis — I was under the impression that his lies never actually impinged on his scholarship, that his lies were done more to satisfy his ego than to promote one thesis over another.

A distinction can be made between those academic sins that reflect poorly on the sinner, but not their work (Ambrose, Goodwin, Ellis) and those sins that call the whole academic enterprise into doubt (Bellesiles and perhaps Lott).

And Richard Riley notes:

With respect, I don’t think your post on Tim Noah’s discussion of John Lott fairly acknowledges the seriousness of what Lott is alleged to have done. You say Lott “is accused of claiming to have done a study that was never published at all,” and you compare that to the fact that “Bellesiles … was found to have fabricated research that was crucial to the thesis of a published academic work.”

But as Noah points out, Lott’s “survey” is what he (currently) claims to be the support for a crucial passage, indeed a crucial theme, in his major published work – that is, the assertion that brandishing a firearm rather than firing it, almost all the time, is all it takes to stop an attack. If Lott didn’t do his survey – as Noah says, he’s changed his position on what his supporting sources are, but he currently says it’s his survey that supports the assertion – then it sure looks as though Lott “fabricated research crucial to the thesis” of his major published work.

If proved (big “if”), that’s pretty bad. Much worse than Ellis, I’d say.

Well, even Lott’s critic-in-chief Tim Lambert says otherwise, as I noted in my first post on this, where I quoted Lambert as saying:

Finally, I should comment on the overall significance of this question. Lott’s 98% claim takes up just one sentence of his book. Whether or not it’s true, it doesn’t affect his main argument, which is about alleged benefits of concealed carry laws. I don’t think any fuss would have been made if Lott hadn’t repeated the claim numerous times on TV shows, on radio shows, and in opinion pieces.

Now others may disagree — and as I’ve said repeatedly, I do think the charge is a serious one, just not of Bellesiles-caliber. And if the charge of survey-falsification is proven, people will be justified in not trusting Lott any more, and AEI, where Lott works, would be justified in letting him go, or suspending him for a year, or whatever. I do feel, though, that trying to turn Lott into the “right wing Bellesiles” has a lot more to do with political positioning and paybacks than it does with Lott, and I very much believe that there is a double standard here.

As many of Lott’s pro-gun critics have said (and Lott has a lot more pro-gun critics than Bellesiles had anti-gun critics), Lott should know that there’s a double standard, and should conduct himself accordingly. That’s good, prudent advice. But it doesn’t mean that the double standard shouldn’t be pointed out, either.

UPDATE: Michael Pollard makes the point well:

Timothy Noah asks if John Lott is “the Bellesiles of the Right.” But Slate readers may be puzzled about what this means given that Slate published no articles about Bellesiles’ notorious academic fraud and disgrace until … Timothy Noah decided to mention it in today’s attack on Lott. . . .

Noah’s new-found interest in academic honesty would be easier to take seriously if he’d shown the slightest interest in Bellesiles before this.

Indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Brian Linse weighs in: ” Is he the Bellesiles of the Right? Who gives a shit? In my opinion they are both useless to the gun policy debate.”

What I hate about Brian is that he’s so stuffy and proper he won’t tell you what he really thinks. . . .

KOS IS STILL LOOKING FOR CORRESPONDENTS for his Political State Report site. It seems to be going quite well, and if you’re interested in covering your state, drop by and email him via the link there.

DANA BLANKENHORN EMAILS: “Two words — Space Elevator.” Sounds good to me. He didn’t like my paper-ballots piece much, though. Oh, well.

UPDATE: Technoptimist has the punchline.

JIM BENNETT WRITES:

Rather than a solution to the fulfillment of these needs, the shuttle has become an awkward legacy. It will never deliver the cheap access its proponents had promised, and after Columbia’s loss, lingering doubts will remain regarding the system’s reliability no matter what the result of the investigation may be. Yet it cannot be merely scrapped at this point, without scrapping a substantial range of activities, most notably the International Space Station. . . .

The shuttle’s real problems stem from the system that produced it and managed it from day one. In Lyndon Johnson’s eyes, NASA was primarily the Marshall Plan for the Confederacy. The shuttle was a political creature from the beginning, and the complex set of compromises and tradeoffs needed to bring it into being assured that it would forever be too expensive to fly often enough, or build enough of, to get the proper experience base to really understand reusable space flight. The total number of takeoff-landing cycles flown by the shuttle fleet even now is smaller than that typically flown by a new airliner prototype. In some ways, we still cannot say that anything that has happened with the shuttle fleet is statistically significant. . . .

Government should think less about what the ideal piece of hardware should be, and more about how to help private companies mobilize the capital to develop multiple approaches. Smart buying practices are one such means; permitting capital from close allies like Britain to have a role in financing development might be another.

Read it all. Sorry about all the Shuttle-blogging. I’ll return to my usual hobbyhorses soon enough. . . .

MORE PEOPLE THAN VOTED FOR HUGO CHAVEZ have reportedly signed an anti-Chavez petition.

WANT TO HEAR THE TRIAL LAWYERS’ SIDE OF THINGS? InstaLawyer — hey, at least he didn’t call himself “TrialPundit” — delivers it.