I DON’T THINK THAT MOBIUS DICK WILL MAKE THE TOP 40, but at least I’ve made this top 20.

I LOVE THE BT REFERENCE: Now to work in one about blonde English girls with ghetto names.

ROGER SIMON, AUSTIN BAY, AND CLAUDIA ROSETT discuss the UNScam oil-for-food scandal on Kudlow & Company. Trey Jackson has the video.

CATHY SEIPP: “Personally, I think we should be banning the phrase ‘taste treats,’ not guns, but alas I do not rule the world.”

CANADIAN SCANDAL UPDATE:

The Canadian company that Saddam Hussein invested a million dollars in belonged to the Prime Minister of Canada, canadafreepress.com has discovered.

Cordex Petroleum Inc., launched with Saddam’s million by Prime Minister Paul Martin’s mentor Maurice Strong’s son Fred Strong, is listed among Martin’s assets to the Federal Ethics committee on November 4, 2003. . . .

Yesterday, Strong admitted that Tongsun Park, the Korean man accused by U.S. federal authorities of illegally acting as an Iraqi agent, invested in Cordex, the company he owned with his son, in 1997.

I remember a lot of talk about a “coalition of the bribed,” but I’m not sure this was what people meant. . . .

ASHISH HANWADIKAR has thoughts on how to sneak in democracy using demonstrations ostensibly against third parties. Is this what’s going on in China? We can hope.

WHAT’S GOOD FOR GENERAL MOTORS? Some thoughts at GlennReynolds.com.

I WENT ALONG WITH THE INSTA-WIFE to her cardiac rehab place. They’re quite good about having spouses there, and even hooked me up to an EKG monitor while I exercised. Helen’s workout is pretty mild compared to what she was doing a few months ago, but she’s still glad to be getting exercise, and they say she’ll be able to return to her old workout in a few months.

BUSINESS WEEK has a cover story on blogs. Meanwhile, Mike Krempasky reports good news for free speech online.

IN THE MAIL: Craig Symonds’ Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles That Shaped American History. Looking through it, I was interested to see that Commodore Dewey’s staff was almost embarrassed at the lack of casualties in the battle of Manila Bay. Symonds reports that the size of the butcher’s bill had, in the age of wooden ships and iron men, been seen as an indicator of how major the victory was. This battle marked a paradigm shift in that regard.

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON FRAUD AND FAT: Many people will find this a relief.

RANDALL PARKER wonders what will happen when everybody can do genetic engineering.

ALEC RAWLS looks at Earth Day 2030, with a plot line that seems to owe something to these guys.

EUGENE VOLOKH thinks that I, and Vince Carroll, have erred on the subject of academic freedom. I think that Eugene’s argument is entirely correct — but the definition of academic freedom in question was not mine, or Vince Carroll’s, but that of the faculty who supported Ward Churchill. That was the point of Carroll’s first paragraph:

Remember the proclamation of 29 professors at the University of Denver College of Law denouncing the inquiry into Ward Churchill because “the critique of conventional wisdom, or the accepted way of doing (or seeing) things, is essential to fostering the public debate that is necessary to prevent tyranny”?

While DU was certainly within its rights not to publish the article by Lamm, that action sits uncomfortably with talk of “fostering public debate,” especially when it seems clear that his article would normally have been published, and was rejected only because the administration found the ideas unacceptable.

JIM DUNNIGAN WRITES on popular demonstrations and the coming revolution in China:

The government is scrambling to defuse all the unrest unleashed by popular discontent over Japanese textbooks that downplay Japanese atrocities during World War II. It isn’t easy. There are many groups in China, that are unhappy with the government, and are mobilizing to hold public demonstrations in the major cities. The government is rushing additional police and troops to cities most likely to be the scene of these demonstrations. One of the most touchy dissident groups are retired military officers and NCOs. The armed forces have shed several hundred thousand officers and troops in the last few years, as the size of the armed forces were reduced. But each year, over 40,000 officers and NCOs are retired on small pensions, and left to fend for themselves. These retirees believe they deserve better, and they are organizing. This is particularly frightening, as these retired warriors could provide professional advice for a mass rebellion.

And one suspects the armed forces would be more reluctant to move against them.

TURNING A VERIZON EVDO CARD into a mobile wireless access point. Pretty cool. Thanks to reader Rob Port for the link.

TED OLSON, NO QUICHE-EATING LEFTY, writes that Republicans should lay off the judiciary:

But, absent lawlessness or corruption in the judiciary, which is astonishingly rare in this country, impeaching judges who render decisions we do not like is not the answer. Nor is the wholesale removal of jurisdiction from federal courts over such matters as prayer, abortion, or flag-burning. While Congress certainly has the constitutional power, indeed responsibility, to restrict the jurisdiction of the federal courts to ensure that judges decide only matters that are properly within their constitutional role and expertise, restricting the jurisdiction of courts in response to unpopular decisions is an overreaction that ill-serves the long-term interests of the nation. As much as we deplore incidents of bad judging, we are not necessarily better off with — and may dislike even more — adjudications made by presidents or this year’s majority in Congress.

Calls to investigate judges who have made unpopular decisions are particularly misguided, and if actually pursued, would undermine the independence that is vital to the integrity of judicial systems. If a judge’s decisions are corrupt or tainted, there are lawful recourses (prosecution or impeachment); but congressional interrogations of life-tenured judges, presumably under oath, as to why a particular decision was rendered, would constitute interference with — and intimidation of — the judicial process. And there is no logical stopping point once this power is exercised.

He also observes: “No discussion of the judiciary should close without reference to the shambles that the Senate confirmation process has become.” Indeed. And there’s nothing about that process that suggests that the Senate has anything to teach judges — or the rest of us — about self-restraint or fairness.

Of course, that describes the Democrats, too as Harry Reid’s embarrassingly ignorant assault on Clarence Thomas illustrates.

UPDATE: Charles Krauthammer agrees this morning:

Provocation is no excuse for derangement. And there has been plenty of provocation: decades of an imperial judiciary unilaterally legislating radical social change on the flimsiest of constitutional pretexts. But while that may explain, it does not justify the flailing, sometimes delirious attacks on the judiciary mounted by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and others in the wake of the Terri Schiavo case.

But read the whole thing.

ED MORRISSEY remains the go-to guy on the Canadian scandals and the political havoc they’re wreaking. Just keep scrolling.

AUSTIN BAY IS BEHIND BIGGIO: I heard him getting grief for that on Hugh Hewitt.

GM’S GOLD-PLATED PROBLEMS: Some thoughts, over at GlennReynolds.com.

UPDATE: Rand Simberg offers more thoughts on GM, from a company-town kid. Unlike Michael Moore, Rand actually did grow up in Flint.

WEBB WILDER UPDATE: Reader Barry Johnson emails:

Did you know that Webb regularly does DJ duty on XM radio’s “X Country?” That’s how I found out about Wilder, I’m ashamed to say. But he rules, and so does XM radio. I wish I’d subscribed sooner.

Hmm. They’ve got my brother’s band, too. Maybe I should subscribe.

SENTENCING AND WHITE-COLLAR CRIMES: Doug Berman has thoughts inspired by the latest Enron developments.

BLOGGERS AS SYMBIOTES: And customers! Some people get it.

MORE CANADIAN SCANDALS: As the headline at Canada’s version of The Drudge Report, NealeNews, puts it: “Judgeships Doled Out as Rewards.”

IN THE MAIL: George Gilder’s The Silicon Eye: How a Silicon Valley Company Aims to Make All Current Computers, Cameras, and Cell Phones Obsolete.