TRENT LOTT: “I’ll never read a blog.”

UPDATE: “To which I’m sure Yoda would reply, ‘That is why you failed’.” From reader Tim Gilbert.

Indeed.

IN LIGHT OF MY PRINTER POST from a while back, I guess I should report that I just installed one of these HP wireless printers to replace my now-dead study printer. (The old one bravely lasted just long enough to finish the book, which is now with the publisher; may it rest in peace in printer heaven, where the ink cartridges are always full and the paper never generic). The installation was easy, though it took a long time, chiefly because HP loads up the installation with a lot of software and other junk I’d just as soon do without. The wireless printing works fine from my laptop, too.

But what I’d really like is a wireless printer that will show up on any laptop in range, and print from any laptop in range, without having to load any software or drivers. That way guests, etc., could use it with a minimum of fuss. I don’t think that’s even possible with current operating systems. Am I wrong?

SISSY WILLIS REPORTS that USA Today has pulled the Condi photo mentioned earlier, and says that it was altered in ways that don’t fit USA Today’s standards.

IS SMALL THE NEW BIG? That’s a theme I’ve written about before (and it’s even a chapter in the book), but here’s more evidence for the proposition that small businesses are of growing importance in generating wealth:

When we look carefully at the distribution of these tax returns a clear picture emerges: an extraordinarily high proportion of high-income taxpayers have some form of business income (schedule C, E, or F) and that as their incomes rise, so too does the likelihood that they have business activity. As shown in Figure 2, overall 43% of taxpayers in the top 20% have business income, twice the percentage of those in the middle income group. Of those taxpayers in the top 1%—those earning more than $300,000 and subject to the highest marginal tax rates—nearly three quarters have business income. And for taxpayers with incomes above $1 million per year, nearly 83% have business income.

People often argue that self-employment or small business formation is up because people can’t get other jobs — it’s just a step above welfare, in other words. This would seem to suggest otherwise.

ANOTHER BLOGGER IS OFF THE FENCE regarding the Miers nomination: “I don’t want a Justice who is merely better than the mediocre. I want excellence.”

BLOGGER MOMMA BEAR HAS DIED: She is remembered here and here.

JEEZ, CAN THE WHITE HOUSE DO ANY WORSE ON SPENDING?

AP reports that President Bush has reversed course and reinstated the U.S. Department of Labor’s Davis-Bacon regulations on federally funded hurricane recovery and reconstruction projects in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

Mark Tapscott adds:

This latest decision, along with the lack of vocal White House support for the Coburn amendments last week and the growing fiasco of the Harriet Miers nomination for the U.S. Supreme Court could well ignite an open revolt on the Right that could seriously damage Bush’s ability to get anything through Congress for the rest of his second term in the presidency.

He notes a common factor with Bush 41.

FRANCO ALEMAN has come out of the closet — and he’s wearing pajamas!

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Mark Tapscott notes signs of progress.

THERE’S LOTS OF RAMPANT SPECULATION regarding what Patrick Fitzgerald will do. I don’t have any particular thoughts, except to note that lots of people are mentioning the False Statements Act. That’s a troubling law, and as I’ve done before, I recommend my former colleague Peter Morgan’s article, The Undefined Crime of Lying to Congress: Ethics Reform and the Rule of Law, 86 Nw U L Rev 177 (1992). The False Statements Act reaches more (a lot more) than just lying to Congress, and his article surveys its history and some of its abuses.

The subject also gets considerable discussion in this book, which was seen as more-or-less pro-Clinton when it came out, but which I think (and thought) has more general applicability.

UPDATE: More here.

RON BAILEY writes on NanoBioTech.

JOHN STOSSEL WRITES on the fate of the Coburn Amendment: “How do they live with themselves?”

EUGENE VOLOKH WRITES on the Second Amendment and the ‘Living Constitution.'”

IN THE MAIL: John J. Miller’s A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America. I expected it to be a rather dull house-history of the Olin Foundation, but it’s actually a pretty interesting insider’s account of the creation of a “counter-intelligentsia.”

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Over at GlennReynolds.com, I ask where’s the White House?

VIRGINIA POSTREL EXPLAINS why she opposes Harriet Miers’ confirmation.

DON’T MISS THE LATEST CARNIVAL OF TOMORROW, with all sorts of blog posts on futurist topics.

MY FORTHCOMING BOOK has a chapter called “From Media to We-dia” (with an appropriate hat tip to Jim Treacher) and the theme is one I’ve sounded here a lot — about how technology lets individuals do things that only big organizations could do not long ago. I was interviewed the other day by documentary filmmaker Ron Galloway, who’s doing a film on WalMart, and this item from his blog illustrates my point:

We had to edit a trailer for our distributor in a rush the other day, so we ran into the Apple Store in Soho, bought a PowerMac and Final Cut Express, jumped in the car heading for Maryland, and digitized and edited a trailer in the car while riding down the New Jersey Turnpike.

By the time we hit Carlisle, PA it was done. We found a hotel with wifi, and uploaded the 5 minute trailer we had just edited on the road.

You can’t buy that kind of fun.

Actually, you can. And it’s not even all that expensive!

UPDATE: Bob Krumm sounds a cautionary note.

MORE PERSONNEL PROBLEMS for The Guardian.

IF YOU ASK ME, it’s because people like boobies.