BLUE RIDGE BLOG is a photo blog focusing on, you guessed it, the Blue Ridge. “Harbingers of spring” are a theme over there, too.

OIL PRODUCTION IN IRAQ is approaching prewar levels. What’s more there’s agreement on a new Iraqi Constitution. And — though I don’t want to make too much of this because trends are too hard to identify — casualties from terrorism seem to be down significantly, too. There seems to be a lot of good news coming out of Iraq lately, which I guess is why John Kerry prefers to talk about Vietnam.

THE CARMEN ELECTRA OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH: I look at the President’s Council on Bioethics, and how the Bush Administration is blowing things, in my TechCentralStation column for this week.

UPDATE: Virginia Postrel is unhappy, too.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here, via Hit&Run, is a piece by Ron Bailey on the Council from its early days that’s still worth reading. Bailey regarded the Council as insufficiently diverse (in an intellectual sense) then; it seems unlikely that the latest round of changes is going to improve matters.

STEPHEN BAINBRIDGE has an article up arguing that Martha Stewart never should have been prosecuted.

Personally, I think they should be devoting their resources to investigating insider trading within the United States Senate.

UPDATE: These topics and many others are addressed at this week’s Carnival of the Capitalists. Don’t miss it!

LAW PROFESSOR ANN ALTHOUSE writes that John Kerry is drastically wrong about DNA testing and the death penalty.

Why isn’t the press catching major factual errors like this? (And scroll up to see her defending Kerry on another issue.)