MORE TROUBLE FOR KOFI: “U.N. worker accused of genocide in Rwanda.”

RAND SIMBERG REPORTS that legislation to boost the commercial space industry is being held up by John McCain in a dispute over boxing-reform legislation.

THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL OF THE RECIPES is up.

FROM MY EARLIER LINK to the short Web film Tooth Fairy, reader Robert Sterling emails: “Did you notice that the security guard was played by Jeff Bezos?” Not until he pointed it out, I didn’t.

UPDATE: Here’s a review of Tooth Fairy, and here’s another review of an earlier Amazon film, Portrait, with Minnie Driver.

THERE’S LOTS OF GOOD STUFF at The Belmont Club. Just keep scrolling.

THE ECONOMIST has more on American academia’s serious diversity problems. “Academia is simultaneously both the part of America that is most obsessed with diversity, and the least diverse part of the country.” (Via Carl Frank).

UPDATE: More on that topic here.

THE BBC IS HOSTING A DEBATE ON LONGEVITY, between Aubrey de Grey and S. Jay Olshansky. I don’t know who’s right, but I know who I hope is right.

EUGENE VOLOKH: crazed egalitarian.

PEOPLE ARE STILL VOTING for the Weblog Awards.

UKRAINE UPDATE: “Ukraine’s Supreme Court has nullified the results of the country’s disputed presidential election and called for a repeat of the runoff in three weeks.”

WHAT I’M READING: the new Harry Turtledove book, which is okay, but not his best. I’d like to see a point-counterpoint review by Eric Muller and Michelle Malkin. . . .

THE MARS BUG: As this article in the Times notes, life on Mars may not be a blessing:

The search for life on Mars, now more than a century old, is still not finally resolved. But the odds that life existed there and may still exist are shortening, according to planetary experts, Dr Kargel said.

Nobody any longer expects Martian life forms to be anything like those on Earth. But there remains a possibility that bacteria or other microscopic organisms may survive in regions where there is still water. On Earth, almost every imaginable habitat, including deep underground, has specialised bacteria — called extremophiles — living and thriving.

The risks are twofold: probes sent from Earth may contaminate Mars with terrestrial bacteria, wrecking future studies of Martian life; or, more important, bacteria brought back from Mars may contaminate the Earth with unpredictable effects.

Here’s a column on the subject that I wrote a while back.

I WAS A COMMUNIST FOR DUTCH INTELLIGENCE: The WSJ has a story (subscription only, alas) on a phony Maoist group set up by Dutch intelligence, which has recently come out of the cold. Not everyone is happy:

Set up and run by spooks in 1969, his party, the MLPN, had its own newspaper, De Kommunist, written and edited by the secret service. As well as Mr. Boevé playing Chris Petersen, the secretary-general, it had a chairman (another fraud) and a Central Committee stacked with secret agents. To add authenticity, the party let Mr. Wartena and a handful of other true believers join its otherwise nonexistent ranks, telling them that they were part of a network of underground cells. . . .

“I totally wasted 12 years of my life,” says Paul Wartena, an ex-MLPN member who was so dedicated to the cause he used to donate 20% of his salary to the fake party. He says he “had some doubts now and then” about the MLPN but stayed loyal because “I was very naive and Mr. Boevé was such a good actor.” Now a researcher at a university in Utrecht, Mr. Wartena wants Dutch intelligence to pay him back for all his donations.

Mr. Boevé, now 74, scoffs at his acolyte: “He was an idiot.”

I wonder what some Al Jazeera fans will be saying in 20 years?

FOREIGN LESION: Sylvain Charat looks at French policy in The Ivory Coast.

UPDATE: Related thoughts here: “Forget ideology. The new divide is between the corrupt and the clean.”

PIERCING TO THE TRUTH: The Tehran Times reports that Al Jazeera is actually a Zionist plot to make Arabs and Islam look bad:

But the actions of the network gradually revealed the fact that Al-Jazeera officials, on the orders of Zionist agents, are trying to divide Islamic countries and tarnish the image of Islam. . . .

By broadcasting abhorrent scenes of the beheadings of foreign hostages by the criminal agents of the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi terrorist group, the network succeeded in increasing anti-Muslim sentiment throughout the world, particularly in the West.

It’s hard to argue with that. (Via Right-thinking).

IS HAMAS SOFTENING ITS STANCE toward Israel? This is big news if it pans out. But that’s a big “if,” too.

WIRELESS UPDATE: I took the InstaWife to the doctor’s this morning, and I’m wireless-blogging from the waiting room using the Verizon wireless card I mentioned the other day. The signal’s strong here, and it’s about like using a really good dialup connection. Not bad. It’ll be better, of course, when they roll out the wireless broadband here in a few months.

HOAXED? “LONDON (Reuters) – BBC World said on Friday that an interview it ran with a man it identified as a spokesman for Dow Chemical Co, in which he said the U.S. company accepted responsibility for India’s Bhopal disaster, was wrong and part of an ‘elaborate deception.'”

HERE’S STILL MORE on the shocking lack of diversity on many American campuses.

Somebody should make a documentary on this.

TOOTH FAIRY: The latest Web film is up over at Amazon. My daughter still pretends to believe in the tooth fairy, since I explained to her several years ago that you don’t get money if you don’t believe in her. It’s become a running joke with us. Fortunately, though, I’ve never had to do what this dad does.

UNSCAM UPDATE:

Although the Iraqi elections on Jan. 30 will top her incoming agenda, the first real indicator of Condoleezza Rice’s tenure as secretary of state will be how she handles something most in her new department would rather ignore: the U.N.’s oil-for-food scandal.

Yes, that’s a major item.

THANKS for all the donations. I’ve thanked everyone who sent a paypal donation, and all the Amazon donors who clicked the button to send me an email. If you didn’t do that, you’re anonymous to me so this will have to be your thank-you note. Thanks!

OVER AT THE BELGRAVIA DISPATCH, Greg Djerejian looks at the latest by Chris Hedges and ponders the New York Times / New York Review of Books echo chamber.

I got the promotional email for this issue of the NYRB, which states: “With the approaching commencement of George Bush¹s second term, the Holiday Issue serves as an engaging and necessary guide to start America thinking with the right foot forward.” I don’t think it’s actually the right foot. . . .

LOTS OF COMPANIES ARE mining blogs for market research.

HERE’S MORE ON MARC RICH, whose activities don’t sound very admirable, though they certainly are diverse.